Lost Man's River (58 page)

Mister Colonel was huntin the truth about his father, he wanted to find out who he really was, but he couldn't never find a truth that satisfied him. That's why he could never let go of his death. People will tell you Colonel Watson never spoke about his father—well, he tried, but after a while he give it up. It was the Bay people who would not discuss Ed Watson, not with Colonel! Even old family friends would go dead quiet on him, kickin the ground. They were afraid of him, Lee Harden said, knowin Colonel's belief that lynch law had condemned and executed E. J. Watson. They never knew who he hated worst, the ones who gunned his father down or his father's so-called friends who stood back by the store and watched 'em do it. Hardens was about the only ones that weren't in one bunch or the other. By the end we was the only family who made him welcome, knowin he didn't hate no one at all.

When rumors started about his list of names, there was plenty of talk about gettin Colonel first. The men figured he was dead set on revenge—just a matter of time, they said, before this nice soft-speakin feller went dead crazy and picked off every man on that damn list he could draw a bead on. But years went by and nothin happened and nobody ever seen no list, and meanwhile poor Colonel never harmed a soul. Finally the Bay people figured out that Colonel Watson weren't cut out to kill nobody, he was too gentle, too kindhearted, and never meant no harm. When still in his younger years, he had come home to the Islands, and he went and become a older feller right beside 'em, and all that while, he was neighborly and friendly, even to them that spited him and cut him cold. But it was too late, they had lost their chance to be in friendship with him, so some of 'em said what a pity it was that he was so standoffish like his daddy, and never give nobody no chance to know him.

That year the Park come in, Mister Colonel had to move out of the Islands same as everybody. Most of us Hardens went to Everglade, where I took a couple years in school. From all our good tutorin at home, I could read-and-write-and-rithmetic better than anybody in my grade except a sassy girl named Sally Daniels who had a snappy brain to see her through. As for Mister Colonel, he just lived along on his little boat, went here and there—Caxambas, Everglade, Flamingo. Kind of a drifter. Lived some seasons with other fishermen on houseboat lighters back of Turkey Key, and mostly stayed clear of Chokoloskee, like before. I reckon he liked to drink as much as most. Course us fishermen didn't have no cocktails like you see today. Mister Colonel, he'd go get his pint and he'd turn it up till he got it all, then shiver hard like a wet dog and step out tall. Goin down the beach under the moon, his back looked like a block of wood, real stiff and straight!

When he moved away north—that's when I lost track of him. He was finishin
up his degree at the University, finishin up his history book on southwest Florida, but he never told nobody about that, and we sure never learned it till much later. When he come back south here a few years ago is when he kind of settled at Caxambas, but I never seen him from one year to the next.

Today all them Bay families will tell you how they loved ol' Colonel. Maybe some did but damn few showed it, and that shy quiet feller never knew. That's why he come to Lost Man's River and stayed with us for most of thirty years.

In the phone booth on the empty mall, Lucius studied the toe of his own shoe amongst the flattened soda bottle caps and cigarette butts. Outside the booth, a shining grackle waddled on the pavement, bright cruel eye cocked for a scrap to toss and pick apart and gobble.

“You mean
Colonel
Watson?”

“That's right.”

His explanation to Bill House's son—that he was writing a biography of E. J. Watson and wished to ask about his late father's conclusions about Watson's death—was met by silence. Lucius breathed deeply, trying to stay calm. A meeting with Andy House was critical, not only because his clan had been the spine of the Watson posse but because only the Houses might know the truth about the man rumored to have fired first.

Among the members of the posse (all of whom he had identified and tried in vain to question years before), only a few such as the House men had readily acknowledged taking part—not that they had talked to him about it. As for the rest, anger and guilt, fear and special pleading, had muddied their “eyewitness” accounts. A few of these men, out of pride in their inside information on the most vivid event in the region's history—or even the need of a better story with which to repay young Watson for their drink—had affirmed the rumor about Henry Short. Lucius himself thought it inconceivable that Henry Short had fired at his father, yet what had once been a stray rumor had become so commonplace that he needed the House clan to put it to rest once and for all.

Years ago he had confronted Henry—uselessly, since the man had had no choice but to deny any participation in the shooting. In those days Henry's life was still in danger, whereas now he had moved away somewhere, and many years had passed, and those who had been out to punish him were old or gone. If he was still alive and could be located, he might dare to tell the truth, and even wish to do so, to be done with it.

House's voice was there again, equable, mild, as if he had listened sympathetically to Lucius's thoughts. “Just so we understand each other, Colonel. My granddad and my dad and Uncle Dan and Uncle Lloyd, they was all in on it, and none of 'em decided later they done wrong.” The voice paused a moment to let that settle. “I don't reckon I'm the one to decide that for 'em. I ain't glad about what they done but I don't aim to tell you I am sorry, neither.” Another pause. “Still want to come all the way out here?”

Lucius said yes. Queried nervously by a woman in the background, House asked if he had any reason for coming that he had not mentioned. Lucius said simply, “I hoped you could help me locate Henry Short.”

“That's honest, anyways. Maybe I can help, maybe I can't. Depends on what you want him for.” The voice paused again. “Come ahead, then, Colonel.” There came the clatter of a dropped receiver, then the same calm voice, soothing someone else. “It's all right, sweetheart. Yes, he's on his way.” The telephone was fumbled roughly while being hung up, and House's voice continued through the bump and clatter. “Now, Sue, no need to be afraid of Colonel just cause he's a Watson …”

Golden Years Estates, in the Big Cypress country between Naples and Immokalee, was a vast pale waste in the flat landscape. Everywhere, the broken forest had been bulldozed into ramparts of tree skeletons and blackened stumps, leaving dead white clay where fossil limestone seabeds lay exposed. Fires smoldered in the desolation, and thick smoke rose to a thick and humid sky. In the near distance, ancient cypress trees in funereal Spanish moss drew back affrighted from the earth-mauling machines, which brooded among white sterile pools like yellow dinosaurs. In a litter of raw pipe and tubing, plastic cups and mud-stuck newspapers, and scraps of pine lumber crusted with gray cement, stood a lone outhouse of a bad zinc green with a stink of carnivores and a rusted door which banged in the wet wind. Here and there in this desolation, a hard-edged house perched naked on a “crescent”—Cypress Crescent, Panther Crescent, Sunset Crescent. Andy House had said laconically that his “retirement estate” could be found on Panther Crescent, but these streets seemed makeshift and unfinished, and the street signs still lay scattered on the ground.

The only living thing in sight was a big florid man in khaki shirt and trousers peering outward from a doorway. He stood like a sentinel, staring away over the white waste as if in hope of rescue, or reinforcements at the very least. “I'll be on the lookout,” Andy House had said, but this man gave no sign that he awaited someone. Only when Lucius drew off the crescent onto the short driveway did he lift a vague hand in the car's direction. The
last time Lucius had seen this man was when the Houses lived at Chatham Bend back in the twenties.

“Notice any panthers crossing Panther Crescent?” Andy House had grown from a sturdy straw-haired boy to a big ruddy man with blue eyes in a steadfast gaze which went right past Lucius's head toward the surrounding distance. Not until he thrust out his hand, which his visitor caught after some fumble and adjustment, did Lucius realize that Andy House was sightless.

“I chose this here retirement estate on account of all the panthers,” House said wryly. “Hoped I might hear one screamin in the night.” Holding on to Lucius's hand, the blind man was still facing outward, as if trying to fathom the great silence of his surroundings. “Funny, ain't it? They been sellin this swamp-and-overflowed to suckers since before I was born, and I never caught on to the deal till a few years back when I bought some myself. They couldn't find no more darn fools to buy land underwater, so they dredged out ditches, laid roads on the fill, then called them ditches ‘bayous' and ‘canals' and sold 'em off as prime waterfront property. Done that first at Miami, Naples, then up and down both coasts. Today there ain't hardly no coast left in all south Florida outside of the Park, so they're doin the same darn thing back up inland! All you need is some old tract of swamp and you are in business. All you got to do is dredge and fill.

“Well, don't let me get started blowin off steam about what they're doin to the backcountry just cause I ain't got nothin else to do!” He raised big heavy arms and let them fall. “One of the big attorneys makin a fortune on this mess you're lookin at, he's supposed to be some kind of kin to Watsons. I won't say a word against the man cause he is a big shot over to Miami. Might send some Spanish over here to beat me up.”

“Watson Dyer?”

“You said the name, not me. Called him Watt or Wattie in the old days.”

“Well, at least he's trying to help stop the Park from burning our old house,” said Lucius, sounding more loyal to Dyer than he felt.

“You mind tellin me what's in it for him?”

“He was born there,” Lucius said finally.

“That might be reason enough for you or me.” Andy House rocked a little on the heels of high square-toed black shoes which looked more like shoe boxes. “Hell, I don't know a thing about it. Just bitchin, is all. Don't you pay this mean old sinner no attention.”

A woman poked her head out of the door but Lucius's smile only scared her back inside. “Good thing God struck me blind, I guess,” Andy was saying. “What I figured I was buying in this ‘planned community' was a little house out in the Cypress, surrounded by green woods and fresh water. Can't see the trees too good no more, but I sure could enjoy them musky smells and
swamp cries in the night, maybe the roarin of a big bull gator in the springtime. Sound just like a ol' outboard, crankin up!” The blind man nodded. “I guess you heard
that
racket plenty times!”

He turned toward the door. “Well, it ain't likely I'll be hearin no bull gator, nor no panther neither, cause after I had this place all bought and paid for, they changed the plan, drained off the swamp, stripped off the cypress. Had to make some room for more retirement estates, I reckon. Tore out every tree they could mangle up with their machines, smashed the country flat. And before they could clean up the mess they made, they run out of money, and before I could get out of the whole deal, I run out, too.”