Lost Man's River (47 page)

Pretty Lucy was fourteen when Lucius saw her next, at Dancy's food stand on the pier at Fort Myers. He treated her to the ice cream she was buying, and they perched on the pier end, swinging their shoes over the current. Lucy told him how sorry she had been to hear about his father, who had been so kind to her, and a moment later, blushing boldly, lifting her chin and gazing straight into his eyes, she said, “I hope you know that for the rest of my life, I shall always be devoted to your family.” The next day, out for a stroll, she spontaneously took his hand and, as a young girl will, swung his arm violently out of her nervousness and high spirits as they wandered west along the river, talking of the good old days at Chatham Bend.

Though aware of the coltish tumult in her—and embarrassed by the twitch in his own trousers—Lucius had been thunderstruck when this innocent river walk caused a near-scandal. “She's only a schoolgirl! Scarcely fourteen!” he protested indignantly to Carrie after Eddie had denounced his behavior, telling him it was high time he grew up. “I married Walter at thirteen,” Carrie retorted, causing her husband to withdraw into the pantry.

Eventually he and Lucy spoke of the rumors about the little brother born
at Chatham Bend. By the age of four or five, Wattie Dyer was reminding people of Ed Watson, and not long after Papa's death, Fred Dyer had confronted his wife, mostly on the evidence of her own grief. Sybil Dyer denied that Mr. Watson was the father and became angry that her husband dared abuse her after all of his lowlife infidelities, which were well known. But his suspicions rose from day to day, and his voice, too, and in the end, driven to distraction by his hounding, Sybil Dyer acknowledged that Edgar Watson—although never her lover—might have been Watt's father, since on several occasions in the period in question, he had broken in and taken her by force.

Fred Dyer raged, “Goddamn you, woman, why didn't you tell me!” And she cried out, “For the same reason you didn't want to look! Because then you would have had to act, and he would have killed you!”

For a few years the Dyer parents chewed on their hard situation. Meanwhile the boy resembled his namesake more with every day, until at last Dyer got sick of looking at him and drove him out. Sybil Dyer, whose dressmaking paid their rent, ordered her husband to depart instead, and he went away enraged, fatally bitter. For years thereafter, in his cups, he would swallow down his last pride with his whiskey and rant about his wife's affair with Watson—
No, no, boys, weren't no damn rape about it!
—and relate how he would have killed that sonofabitch if the House boys hadn't beat him to it.
If it was rape the way she claimed, how come she never used the gun he give her to run him off when he was drinkin? How come that bitch give her bastard boy that name of Watson
? By now poor Fred had long forgotten that the name Watson Dyer was his own idea.

Lucius had never quite made up his mind about it. That his father had taught Mrs. Dyer to use the revolver he had given her seemed a strong proof of sincerity, for E. J. Watson had never deceived himself, he knew how liquor crazed him, Lucius believed his father truly loved her, but love alone might not have deterred rape. Papa would deride Fred Dyer's “intolerance of alcohol,” but Papa himself was the most dangerous drinker his son had ever known.

Yes, Papa was courtly with the ladies, exceptionally considerate and tender, but when he drank, he was a buccaneer and an unholy terror. Jack Watson took all he wanted when he wanted it, and he took it
the way
he wanted, too, his Caxambas ladies whispered, with shy sly smiles which looked strangely askew. “When I fuck 'em, they
stay
fucked!” Papa had shouted at the virgin Lucius, the first time he took him to the noted palm-thatch whorehouse on Black Betsy Key. Though he made that claim in drunken braggadocio, he meant it.

I suppose it's hard for people nowadays to imagine how awful it was for the Watson children—not only the violent murder of their father but the dreadful scandal. Fort Myers was still provincial then, a beautiful small town with white colonial houses and white picket fences to keep strayed range cattle out of the gardens. The whole downtown section was on First Street by the river, a single block along a white oyster shell road of commercial buildings, with a livery stable and a faucet for watering horses. The women convened for small talk at Miss Flossie's clothing store while the men talked under the live oaks and we children pounded up and down the new wood sidewalks.

Two days after Mr. Watson's death, I was having an ice cream soda in Doc Winkler's drugstore when Carrie Langford came in with her Faith and Betsy. Doc Winkler was the only doctor in Lee County, and his prescription shop sold ice cream sodas. Miss Carrie looked just beautiful, as usual, but that day the poor thing had gone dark around the eyes, and her wonderful thick hair had lost its shine. And little Faith whispered, kind of scared, “Mama's been crying all day long, we don't know why she's crying so!” And I came busting out with it—“She's crying cause some bad men shot your grandpa!”

Oh, when my mother heard what I had done, she almost killed me! I was only ten but that was no excuse, I don't know what came over me! Hearing those terrible words, poor Faith became hysterical, that's how upset she was, at least until she realized she might miss her ice cream soda! As for Betsy, who was only five, she started hollering, “Grandpa, Grandpa!” because she needed some attention, too.

Well, just that moment—can you believe it?—the first Indian we children ever saw came into the drugstore in a high silk hat with an egret plume and a long Seminole men's skirt. It was like he'd walked straight in out of the Glades! Faith stopped crying right away. She said, “Mama! Is he going to kill us?” Because in those days, people still talked about the Indian Wars, and most of the few Indians left were still hiding from the white settlers out in the Cypress. The Mikasuki Seminoles forbade their women to speak to a white man or even look at him. If an Indian woman had a child by a white man or a negro, both mother and child were put to death! Later I learned that this Mikasuki man at Doc Winkler's soda fountain had been threatened with death by his own people for coming in too close to the white people and learning to speak English, and for eating ice cream sodas, too, for all I know!

Anyway, Mrs. Langford comforted poor Faith about this Indian in the high silk hat, saying, “No, child, that is Mr. Conapatchie, he's not here to kill little girls but only to enjoy an ice cream soda.” And Billie Conapatchie hiked up that long skirt to seat himself more comfortably, I guess, and he
didn't have on a single stitch beneath! Sat down and dropped the skirt over the stool and picked his ear while waiting to be served!

A few years later, Mama sent me to apologize to Mrs. Langford for picking a beautiful rose which grew out through her fence onto public property, and Miss Carrie invited me inside for a cookie. She was gracious and well-mannered, beautiful, everyone loved her. Soft brown hair and rose complexion—oh, a lovely person, and a good, good woman. We became fast friends, and that friendship has lasted all our lives.

Since her menfolk would never talk about Mr. Watson, Miss Carrie had no clear opinion about his guilt or innocence, she only knew that she missed her “Papa” dreadfully, and was very confused and upset about what her own feelings and position ought to be. After his death, it just seemed best to hush up and go along with the men's silence. But Lucius felt no such obligation, and poor Miss Carrie became mortally upset when her younger brother became estranged from the family. She admired his loyalty towards his father, but she also felt that his refusal to be silent was a lot easier for a footloose brother who could leave Fort Myers—and go to college, go to war, and finally disappear in the Ten Thousand Islands—than for her and Eddie, married with small children, who had to stay home and suffer the stares and whispers.

Poor Lucius Watson could never settle down for long—a “lost soul,” as his sister often called him. Eventually, he borrowed from Mr. Langford's bank to go to college. There he studied Southern history and wrote his thesis on the history of the Everglades and southwest Florida. For fear people might laugh at him, he told no one about it except nosy Lucy, declaring that she was the only one who would ever take him seriously as a historian!

Having been born the year Lucius's mother died, Miss Dyer was now sweet sixteen—which was when most girls married, back in those days! Lucius was in his late twenties then, still modest and handsome, with that natural ease in his own body. One would look up to find him watching from nearby, head slightly averted in that wary and quizzical way that was so dear to me. That shy bent smile (which came straight from his mother, according to Miss Carrie) was his only greeting. He would leave in the same way, slipping away without a word, leaving no trace. On the rare occasions he lingered long enough to hold a conversation, he would lightly flex fingers and knees, keeping them limber, as if at any moment he might be called upon to spring to a high perch or limb or fly away.

During World War I, only months before receiving his degree from the university, Lucius returned home in profound melancholia. As usual, he kept silent about his darkness, and soon he was drinking so relentlessly that his family more or less gave up on him. The one person he saw regularly
was Lucy Dyer, who was always ready to walk with him and listen, too, on those rare occasions when he felt like talking.

This young hussy would shamelessly recount her fond memories of his father in order to win the favor of the grieving son. Thus she became his confidante and friend. She loved him dearly—so dearly that within that year, they committed “mortal sin” together. How immortal—how amazing and mysterious!—it seemed! The fond and foolish thing was overjoyed, knowing they would soon marry and have children (and live happily ever after!). She did not notice that her somber swain had lain beside her as if dead, utterly incapable of speech. And when finally he croaked a few poor words, it was not of love but only of the dishonor he had brought upon them both.

Alas, their love had only deepened the despair of Lucius Watson. Not until she pled for an explanation did her true love confess that he passed most of his days in darkness in which even the red rose and blue sky withdrew their colors and the air turned ashy, filled with fire smudge and hellish vapors. At those times he could scarcely get his breath, let alone remember joy and beauty, or maintain a thought, or rest in sleep. Though he never mentioned suicide, and assured her he was fine, he seemed to be drifting ever faster toward some fatal act. At these times he drove away his shy new lover, afraid she might be drawn down with him into that “undiscovered country,” as he called it.

But we are
together
, she would cry. I am your
lover
!

One day in 1917, not telling anyone, not even lovelorn Lucy (who was mortally wounded, sobbing inconsolably, on the point of hurling herself into the river etc. etc.), Lucius joined the Navy and went off to the Great War and was gone for well over a year. When he finally came home, he seemed almost sheepish that he had survived, and his drinking was worse than ever. Asked what the matter was, he muttered cynically, A man can't even go and die for his own country anymore! In another person, this might have been self-drama, but in Lucius, that dark laconic irony—so like his father's, though it never became cruel—masked a deeply pessimistic spirit.

By now Lucius was twenty-nine years old and his life was wandering away from him. He had some education, yes (and his history of southwest Florida, still half written), but in his opinion, he had no real profession and no prospects. Even worse—as his family would ceaselessly point out—he had no ambition. “Stop this drinking, go find yourself a job, get married, go to church, get on with life!” That's
their
life they are talking about, he told young Lucy, but it isn't mine.