Lost Man's River (81 page)

“Version?”
Andy raised his pale eyebrows high on his pink brow. “You talked all these years to all these people and
still
you ain't heard the story you want to hear?” He turned and started back toward the road.

Lucius explained that all he could expect was a general agreement on what had happened. So far, accounts differed on whether or not there had been a dispute, and whether E. J. Watson had been shot down in his boat or on the shore. Was it self-defense or according to a plan? Did Henry fire? And who fired first?

“You ain't never goin to arrive at no agreement, not if you nag folks for a hundred years. The only man who could walk you through it is the man whose lifeblood soaked into this ground, and even your daddy might not know just how it happened.” He sighed. “Let him go, Colonel. For your own sake.”

“Can't you tell me just what your father told you? About Henry, for example?”

Andy shook his head. “You keep coming back to Henry Short. I tell you what I know. You ask again.” He resumed walking. “I told you, yes, Henry come here with Houses. I told you, yes, he had his rifle with him. That don't mean he raised that gun and aimed it at your father.”

“Your dad told you that Henry Short did not fire at Ed Watson?”

Andy flushed. “Ain't you kind of calling me a liar, Colonel?” He pointed a thick finger toward the place where Watson died. “My dad was lookin down Ed Watson's gun barrels! He was raisin his own gun, pullin the trigger! There weren't no time to keep his eye on Henry!” He tried to calm himself. “Henry was standin right here in the shallers, like I told you. Bill House was standing right beside him. He said your dad was killed by the first bullet. That is all he knew and that is all I know!” He stumped ahead.

They sat down in the thin shade of a casuarina. Leaning back against the leafy bark, facing the water, the blind man breathed deeply for a long, long time. “I sure do like that south wind in my face, don't you? I can smell that Lost Man's country all the way from here!”

Whidden Harden came down the road from the motel and joined them at the tree. “Mister Colonel?” He kicked at the dust, clearing his throat. “I seen Crockett. He told me the story.” Andy groped and put his hand on Lucius's arm, tugged him down beside him. Whidden settled on one heel on the other side.

“The other night, them boys got word from Dyer to go and grab some crazy old feller who would likely be hanging around outside the Naples church hall. Said this man was a fugitive from justice, ‘armed and dangerous.' As soon as the old man hollered through the window, they knew that must be him. They went and grabbed him, grabbed his satchel, slapped a gunnysack over his head so's he wouldn't know where he was headed, then hustled him into the truck and hauled him over east to Gator Hook. Said he kicked and bit—he give 'em a real scrap—but bein old and drunk, he didn't change nothin.

“Maybe halfway there, the old feller sobered up enough to recognize their voices. So he pipes up in his sack, yells ‘Don't you know me, Boys?' They open
the sack and sure enough, the armed and dangerous fugitive from justice is Old Man Chicken! He was shaved and washed, which they sure wasn't used to, so they never recognized him in the dark. So they all have a good laugh over that, give him a little shine to make him feel better, and pretty soon he's as drunk as before and hollerin how he wants to talk to the man in charge! ‘Where's that damn Speck at? I got to talk to him!' But when he learns that Speck is on the Bend, he yells, ‘Hell, no! I ain't goin!' Said he'd prayed to God to strike him dead before he ever set foot on that place again!

“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.”

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 everybody—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.