Lost Man's River (75 page)

“Toward the end, Dad mostly listened to his radio. Sat hunched up over it like a old blue heron, like any moment it might give a message, tell him what his life was all about.” Roy smiled a wistful smile. “ ‘This all there is?' he'd say, looking out his little window. ‘Well, it sure ain't much.' And we never could think up a good saying that might tide him over.”

Roy Thompson grinned at his guest in open pleasure. “I sure am tickled to welcome you to Chokoloskee, Colonel! Us fellers that knowed you pretty good, we knew you never meant no harm with your ol' list. But them ones that took part needed time to learn that. Them men couldn't never be easy around you, Colonel. And in the Fish Wars, they thought you was on the Hardens' side, so that made folks leery of you, too.”

Lucius nodded, standing up to stretch. “Roy, I wanted to ask you if you ever heard any resentment of Henry Short.”

“Henry Short? I don't believe that nobody resented him.” Roy Thompson looked guarded as his wife returned, bringing some coffee.

“Resented who? For what?” she said, poised in the doorway with the pot. “You leaving?” she said, because Lucius was still standing.

“What I mean is, folks liked Henry,” Roy continued as his friend sat back down. “Folks didn't go against him just because he was a nigger. If you was a nigger and they liked you, everything was fine.”

“Nigra,” his wife corrected him. “Times are changing, Roy, in case you haven't heard.” She sat down slowly, tugging at her skirt to smooth it. “The trouble was, this nigra man married a woman who was white, to hear her family tell it.”

“Now, Mama—”

“Long as those two stayed at Lost Man's, nobody said much. It was God's Mercy that they had no children. Then the younger sister married Storters' man—not a light mulatta this time but a coal black darkie. And after all that, Mrs. Sadie Harden dared to march into our store, expecting to be served like anybody else—”

Lucius stopped her with a harsh noise in his throat. Coolly she awaited his protest. He recrossed his long legs, loath to spoil their meeting, yet feeling obliged to protest that Henry and Dab were both good Christian men, and that anyway, Sadie had no say about whom her husband's sisters chose to marry.

In his sweet high voice, Roy Thompson struggled to mute his wife's insinuations.

“Now, Mother, that ain't fair! Up till the Fish Wars, us fishermen used to camp at Hardens', ate with Hardens, went to all their parties down at Lost Man's! And here's Colonel, setting right here, he lived with 'em for many, many years! Sure, Hardens was always kind to Henry Short. But I never seen Henry go near their table, not when they had visitors, never mind how loud we hollered at him to sit down. Yessir, I sure liked them Hardens, and I liked Henry, too. I never could figure what all that spite and meanness was about.”

“Roy? Mr. Watson came here—”

“The Hardens was all fine fishermen and hunters, they was real nice Christian people, very generous people. And I don't care to hear no more against 'em.” He looked resolutely at his wife, who seemed astonished by this insurrection.

“Well, those people never learned their lesson. They became very unfriendly to their neighbors,” she complained, “all except Earl. Earl Harden would play up to our community, joking and smiling, but he looked like he might bite at the same time.”

Roy said, “Well, I got on with Earl all right, he was a good fella when he wanted.” He looked delighted when Lucius Watson laughed.

“Those Hardens are everywhere these days, up and down the coast. The woods are full of 'em.” She shook her head.

“The Harden kids have come right to the front, grandchildren, too. Fine-looking people,” Roy said joyfully, casting his henpecked condition to the winds. Yet a certain doomed cast to his eye betrayed an awareness that he
would pay dearly once Lucius left the house. “Nosir, they ain't callin 'em no names, not anymore.”

“Edna Watson moved far, far away,” Ernestine said, returning to safer ground, “but she never did forget our Mama's kindness. They corresponded till poor Mama's death. Even then, Edna kept on writing to my sister Wilma, and her oldest daughter stays in touch right to this day.”

“A few years back, we took Ruth Ellen down to Chatham River! She never been there since a real small girl!”

Coming upriver to the Bend, Ruth Ellen had been stunned to see that lonely house. It seemed to her she had seen it in a dream. Ruth Ellen had known almost nothing about her father and did not ask too many questions, but finally she said, very low and shy, ‘What did he look like?' And when she saw the big old cistern on the east side of the house, she recalled in a faint voice how one day she was picked up off the ground and held way out over the black and murky water. And she heard a deep voice warning her she must never play around the cistern, because if she fell in, she would surely drown, and her soul would be lost forever. For long years after, she imagined that this voice was God, but now she believed it was her father, holding her out over the dark waters.

More and more, her childhood days were starting to seep back. Returning downriver, she recalled a morning when she was playing in a skiff tied to the dock. The children were warned they would be punished if they played around the boats because of the giant crocodile which was often seen in that part of the river. The skiff came loose and drifted away with her, and the poor thing was so terrified of that huge crocodile that she could not even cry out. She crouched down in the bottom of the skiff and did her best to pray. As the boat drifted downriver, there was nothing left in all the world but the blue sky above and the sun and silence, and the swift current whispering among the mangroves, whispering and whispering, telling that dreadful monster where to find her. She saw a white bird crossing the blue, the sun piercing its wings, and she prayed that it might be her guardian angel. Then there came a great bump against the boat, and she started to cry, knowing the crocodile had found her. She closed her eyes and scrunched down tight, holding her breath, hoping and hoping it was all a dream.

A blackness crossed the sun, and she thought, Death. But when she gasped for breath to scream, she caught a smell of spirits and tobacco—a half century later, that's what she remembered. This was the only time in all her life she recalled seeing her father, and what remained with her was the great strength of him, and the warmth of his arms as he lifted her from the bottom of that skiff without a word. She couldn't remember the face leaning
over, only the circle of fire on the rim of the black hat shutting out the sun.

At the old McKinney store, moved to a higher ground from the island's northwest point after the Hurricane of 1926, the two swamp trucks, dark gurry red, dull crankcase black, were parked outside the small and faded building. On their huge tires, which jacked the beds high up off the shell road, the new machines seemed top-heavy and out of place in this island backwater of sand tracks, shacks, and ancient autos, loose-fendered, with fallen mufflers. The old broken boats nearby were gray-bearded with dried algae. Scummed rainwater bred mosquitoes in the bilges.

Mud and Dummy lounged against the trucks, watching him come. On the red truck's door was painted in black lettering—WILD HOG JAMBOREE—and on its rear bumper was a sticker with blue stars and red stripes—WHEN YOU TAKE MY GUN, YOU TAKE MY FREEDOM. Below the rifle rack in BAD COUNTRY's rear window was this printed notice:

In the flat light on the Sunday island, Lucius felt thirsty. His first impulse had been to keep on going, but he had taken a deep breath and slowed and turned, and parked.

Bare-chested, in greasy overalls and soiled red galluses, the silent Dummy appeared torpid and indifferent, but Mud grinned like a hound. Both men wore black buckled boots, black baseball caps, rough beards. Mud had one boot hitched up behind on a rear fender.

Crockett Junior lay sprawled across BAD COUNTRY
'S
hood, using a big hunting knife to scrape crisped insects off the windshield. Unaware of Lucius, he wheezed with his exertions, levering his torso with bare and hairy shoulders, thrashing on the stump of the lost arm. A heavy key chain at his belt scraped the truck paint as he shifted position. “This sucker don't go nowhere at all he ain't got a beer can stuck into his face!” Crockett was yelling. “He don't know fuck-all, this stupid fuck! I ain't lettin him nowhere near my rig, not in no truck-pull! Wouldn't have fuckin nothin left of it, time he got done!” Lucius supposed that Dummy was the man referred to, but if so, he seemed utterly indifferent, kneading his testes in a languid manner.

Through the window, Lucius said, “You damn near ran us off the road
this morning.” Mud Braman hooted. “We'll do better next time.” He glanced at the one-armed man for his approval, but Crockett neither turned nor laughed, just kept on scraping. Behind his head, the crude head of his dog loomed in the windshield.

“Dyer says you're supposed to let him go.”

Crockett Junior Daniels lay his knife down on the hood and hiked himself onto his stump. Then he took hold of his big belt buckle with his freed hand the better to hike and shift the belt and jeans, in what looked like an instinctive move to free a weapon. The maneuver took considerable effort, and he gasped noisily, a wet snarl twisting his stubble. Then he said in a low voice, “Fuck Dyer. That old man is goin to get his fuckin neck broke. Maybe you, too.”

Mud Braman whinnied. “Hell, Colonel, you ain't the only one out huntin him! Come on the radio this mornin!” He squinted one puffy eye. “Ol' Chicken sure turned out to be a
mean
old feller! Armed and dangerous! Attempted murder! He's getting too damn old for stuff like that!”

Lucius got out of the car. “I want to know where I can pick him up.”

“You got a boat?”

Crockett pointed his big knife at Mud. “Motor Mouth here don't know nothin. He talks.” He gazed malevolently at Mud, who cursed and kicked the tire. The knife point switched toward Dummy, who appeared to be in suspended animation. Crockett said, “Looks like a idjit, don't he? But the real idjit is this one can't keep his mouth shut.”

“Hell, Dummy ain't no idjit! He ain't even extra stupid. Only quiet. Quiet as the grave.” Mud winked at Lucius. “Good soldier. Very
very
good. But one day when us three boys and Whidden was on patrol, over there to Asie, this man stopped talkin. Said ‘Fuck it'—them were his last words. I believe he has lost the hang of human speech.”

Dummy said nothing, then or later, gazing past Lucius's head, but the corner of his eye tracked every movement.

Crockett growled, “Get goin, Mister.” He turned to his scraping, as if unable to endure Lucius's appearance. In the sun-shined air and Sunday silence, the knife blade squeaked on the dry glass.

“I could charge you guys with kidnapping—that what you want? You know how serious that is?”

Mud jeered, “How come you ain't done that before now?”

“Dyer—” Lucius started, and Mud said, “Fuck Dyer,” and the one-armed man slid off the hood and backed Lucius up against his car at knife point. “You don't listen good,” he murmured, moving forward.

Lucius let all expression leave his face, averting his eyes like a dog showing its throat. Dummy was watching now, his mouth half open, while Mud
stood ready to snarl or jeer according to the one-armed man's first shift in mood.

Mud yelled at Lucius, “Never heard Junior tellin you, ‘Get goin?' You keep pesterin with them stupid-ass questions, he might set that dog on you, run your sorry ass right off this island!”

Cocking the knife blade back under his wrist, Crockett used this knife fist to punch Lucius's chest, driving him back against the car. He went back to his work and did not speak again.

Mud Braman took a long swallow of beer and came up gasping with relief, shaking his head over Lucius's close shave. But when Lucius asked where he might find Bill Smallwood, Mud merely belched, wiping his bearded mouth with the back of his hand. “Nosir,” he snarled. “Nosir, we cain't help you. And that is because we are dumb-ass fuckin rednecks that don't know fuckin nothing about nothin. Only fuckin thing we know to tell you is the fastest fuckin way off this here island!”

An amorphous form loomed in the store's screen door like abyssal life rising palely from the deeps. “We sure don't care none for that kind of talk, not on a Sunday. You boys was sure raised up better'n that.” Slowly the man came outside, blinking in the hard noon light, an elderly, clean-shaven man with thinning hair slicked down on a pale scalp and a line of white skin along the hairline. “Well brung-up young Christian men, talkin like New York City or some darned place,” he complained wearily. “How-do, Colonel,” he said.

“Cap?” Mud complained. “He's lookin to pester Cap'n Bill, is what it is.”

Cap Brown ignored this. “You want Bill, you foller that white road around to the marina. Likely find him in a trailer house up from the office.” To the three young men, the storekeeper said, “I knowed this man since I was your age. He ain't out to harm nobody.” Contemplating the huge new trucks, he shook his head before going back inside.

Crockett climbed into BAD COMPANY and slammed the door, yanking the gargling dog aside by its leather collar. Dummy got into the red truck beside Braman, who eased WILD HOG JAMBOREE into gear. Gunning his motor, Mud jolted ahead as Lucius yelled and stepped forward to detain him. Dummy's paw shot out and seized his shirtfront and yanked him hard against the truck door. Though he fought to get loose, he was dragged out onto the road before the hand released him, sending him spinning hard to the hard ground. BAD COMPANY honked in approval and salute as both trucks wheeled away, the triumphant jeers commingled with bare sunlight and white Sunday dust.