Isaac give a scared wild yip, threw his hands up high as if the man had pulled a gun; the rest of us done our best to laugh, pretend it was all a joke. Watson grinned a little, but Isaac, bein drunk, couldn’t let it go. “Ed? What I mean to say, how come such a friendly feller as yourself is always gettin into so much trouble?”
Storters’ bluetick hound was laying on the dock. That was the lovinest dog I ever come across: just so you touched her, she would pick the place most underfoot so she might get stepped on. Darned if that bitch don’t jump up and run off sideways, tail tucked under like she just been caught with the church supper. By the time Watson’s eyes come back to him, Isaac’s tail was pretty well tucked under, too. Told us later he knew how a treed panther must feel, snarling and spitting at the hounds, and the hunter taking his sweet time, walking in across the clearing, set to shoot him.
You never knew how anything was going to strike Ed Watson: another day, he might have played it as a joke. But this day them blue eyes of his went gray and dead. He cocked his head to see behind Isaac’s question, then hunted down the eyes of every man in case anyone else might have something smart he’d like to add. You could of heard a spider sip a breath. Then he turned back to Isaac, wouldn’t let him go. He never blinked. Isaac done his best to stay right with him, make no sudden moves, but his grin looked stuck onto his teeth. “I don’t go hunting trouble, boy,” Ed Watson whispered finally, “but when trouble comes to me, why, I take care of it.” And he looked up and down the dock, making sure that no man there had missed that message.
What I think today, the man was mocking our idea of desperado speech, but fun or no fun, the way he said “take care of it” was scary. In later years, my sister Mamie liked to recollect how E. J. Watson said them words to her but it was Isaac.
Life weren’t the same down in the Islands after all them stories started up. On our coast it was a long long way to the nearest neighbor, too far to hear a rifle shot, let alone a cry for help. Men knew this but would not admit it, lest they scared their families. I do believe most of ’em liked Ed Watson—you couldn’t help but like such a lively feller! Some called him E. J. same as Ted Smallwood and was proud to let on what good friends they was with the Man Who Killed Belle Starr, but in their hearts, they was afraid. And though most of our women couldn’t never forgive him for murderin a woman, others flat refused to believe he done that: his mannerly ways was fatal to women all the time we knew him.
Ed Watson was humorous, told a good story, and most folks claimed they was always glad to see him. But after his wife and kids moved to Fort Myers, his riffraff crew made a mess of Chatham Bend. He went back to hard drinking and got heavy, kind of mean, and didn’t waste no time at all hunting up trouble.
OWEN HARDEN
It weren’t Tucker and his nephew, the way Bay people tell it. Wally Tucker run away with his young Bet, come north from Key West in a little sloop. Took work on the Watson place to get some farm experience, save some cash, then start out someplace on their own. Like most young people, Bet and Wally thought the world of Mister Watson.
One day that couple upped and quit without no reason, asked for their back pay. Mister Watson needed every hand to finish up his harvest, which went from autumn right into the winter, so naturally he was furious. Hollered that they broke their contract, never give notice, called ’em ungrateful after all he taught ’em, run ’em off and never paid a penny.
Headed south, the Tuckers stopped over at Wood Key for water and a bite to eat. Wally was still raging about their pay, so when he muttered that him and Bet left Watson’s place because they was scared to stay, we never paid too much attention. They wasn’t accusing nobody of nothing, they said, all they wanted was what they had coming.
The Tuckers had learned enough at Chatham Bend to farm, fish, and get by. When they asked our advice on a place to settle, we suggested Lost Man’s Key, which had some high ground in the mouth of Lost Man’s River: across the south channel, at the north end of Lost Man’s Beach, was a freshwater spring and good soil for a home garden. The Atwells back in Rodgers River had never used their quit-claim on this key so they was glad to let Wally knock down the scrub jungle, build a shack and dock in payment. We give ’em a gill net and some tools and seed to get ’em started.
Still, we worried. Us Lost Man’s people had big families for support in time of trouble. Without that, few would last long in the heat and insects, all that rain and rainy season mold and always that green mangrove stillness all around. The men had ways to fight the silence—work like mules, drink moonshine, curse and yell—but the women, half bit to death in the same old muddy yard, faced the same toilsome chores every day for years with nothing to look forward to. It was mostly women who went crazy in the Islands.
Tuckers was different said my sweetheart Sarah when she got to know ’em. Said Bet had the real pioneer spirit. The husband seemed a bright enough young feller but Sarah found out he was on the run from bad debts in Key West and also from Bet’s daddy, having never took the time to marry. Sarah figured he might lack the backbone to hack him out a life here in the Islands. His Bet could take the hardship and the loneliness but Wally Tucker would not last the year.
Turned out that Wally had a lot less brains and a lot more grit than Sarah give him credit for. He was ready to stand up to Watson, which few did, because Ed could shoot and Ed would shoot, that was the story. Us Hardens could shoot as good as most but we wouldn’t trade shots with no desperader less we had to, and by the time we knew we had to, we’d be dead, said Earl, who knew everything bad there was to know about Ed Watson.
Storters in Everglade and Smallwoods at Chokoloskee held registered land claims, and both them Bay families are well-to-do today, but Hardens didn’t want no part of surveys. All we knew was, no good could come from letting no surveyor anywheres near to Lost Man’s River. What filing a land claim meant to us was claiming land we was already entitled to, having cleared it off and hacked and hoed for years. Pay taxes with nothing to show for it—no school, no law, no nothing. And it weren’t only just the payment we was dodging but the whole damn government, county, state, or federal, don’t make no difference, because any folks who would think to live on a coast as lonesome as Ten Thousand Islands don’t want no part of the law, we never cared if the whole world passed us by. Never got it through our heads that without that claim we’d wind up losing everything to some damn stranger that aimed to steal all our hard work right out from under us. Show up waving a paper giving him title to our land that we had cleared before this feller ever heard of such a place. Got a couple of fat-ass deputies along to make sure these squatters clear off quick, don’t try no tricks on this slick city sonofabitch that calls himself the rightful owner.
Watson was smarter. Watson knew that whoever had title to the few pieces of high ground on the mangrove coast would control development of the whole Ten Thousand Islands. Watson knew that, he was first to see it. He had filed claims on Possum and Mormon Keys as well as Chatham Bend, but the linchpin of his plan was that small key in the mouth of Lost Man’s River.
Mister Watson’s grand idea was to salvage the huge river dredge that the Disston Company had abandoned up the Calusa Hatchee, ship it on barges south to Lost Man’s, dig a ship channel upriver through the orster bars and dredge out First Lost Man’s Bay for a protected harbor. Docks, trading post, and hunting lodge, bird shot, bullets, fishing tackle, wild meat, fresh fish, homegrown garden produce, fine quality cane syrup, maybe cane moonshine of his own manufacture. Yankee yacht trade in the winter, hunters, trappers, mullet netters, and maybe a few Mikasuki all year round. That long mile of Lost Man’s Beach with its royal palms and pure white coral sand would beat any touristical resort on the east coast.
Maybe six months after Tuckers got there, E. J. Watson spread the word that he aimed to buy up Lost Man’s Key just as soon as them conchs up Rodgers River seen the light. Not rightly knowing what he meant by that, the Atwells felt uneasy. Wanting to be neighborly to Mi
ster Watson, they let him know they was considering his offer, then laid low back in Rodgers River, never went nowheres near to Chatham Bend.
It weren’t that Atwells didn’t like Ed Watson, they sure did. The year their field got salt-watered by storm tide, Old Man Shelton and his boy Winky went to Watson to buy seed cane for replanting. Ed put ’em up for three days at the Bend, sent ’em home with seed cane, hams and venison, anything they wanted and no charge.
Atwells was twenty-five years in the Islands, had two good gardens, fruit trees, melons, all kinds of vegetables, but before that year was out, they moved back to Key West. Old Mrs. Atwell said she was going home to the place where she was born to die in peace and any offsprings who wanted to tag along was welcome. Turned out the whole bunch was raring to go but they needed some quick cash to make the move. So Winky and his brother sailed up to the Bend to pay a call on Mister Watson, have a look at his fine hogs while waiting for his generous offer for that key. Never let on how bad they needed money to move the family to Key West till after Winky pocketed the cash.
Watson was so excited his grand plan was working out that he offered shots of his good bourbon and a toast to Progress, declaring that the U.S.A. was bringing light to the benighted, spreading capitalism, democracy, and God across the world. Said, “You boys ever stop to think about them Filipino millions? Just a-setting in the jungle thirsting for Made-in-America manufacture and Christ Jesus both?” Ed was overflowing with high spirits, Winky told us, and hard spirits, too.
When Josie Jenkins served ’em up a fine ol’ feed of ham and peas, E. J. got boisterous, hugged her round the hips, sat that dandy little woman on his lap, introduced their daughter Pearl. (His oldest boy Rob, he come in, too, but soon as he seen his daddy drinkin, he headed back outside without his meal.) Ed gave them Atwells lots more whiskey, told comical stories about black folk back in Edgefield County, South Carolina: No call to go arrestin dis heah darkie fo’ no Miz Demeanuh, Mistuh Shurf! Ah ain’t nevuh touched no lady by dat name!
One time at our Harden table, Ed told that same old story. When we didn’t laugh much, he opined, “Well, I don’t guess Choctaws care too much for darkie jokes.” We knew he was baiting us and didn’t like it but Daddy Richard never seemed to mind. Said something like, “That’s us dumb Indins for you, Ed.” And those two men would grin and nod like they knowed a thing or two, which I reckon they did.
Indins was one thing but nigras was another. Most of the settlers in southwest Florida came south in the old century to get away from Yankee Reconstruction, and they brought hard feelings about nigras to our section: just wouldn’t tolerate ’em and still don’t to this day. Ed Watson, now, he joked with nigras, talked with ’em like they was people. Got mad at ’em, sure, like anybody, but he was one of the few men on this coast who didn’t seem to have it in for ’em on general principles—one reason why us Hardens had to like him.
When our guest departed, Webster said, “You notice how he mostly uses that word ‘darkie’?” I reckon we all noticed that, which don’t mean anybody understood why it was so. And naturally Earl told his dark brother, “Don’t matter what you call ’em, boy, a nigger is a nigger.” And Webster said, “Takes one to know one, don’t it.” Webster’s tongue could whip Earl back into his corner, and if Earl went for him, ol’ Web could handle that part pretty good, too.
That day, Watson told them Atwells how he didn’t need no damn Corsican like Dolphus Santini to instruct him about land surveys, not no more, because his daughter had married her a banker and his son-in-law’s friends the cattle kings had such good connections in the capital that any bureaucrat who messed with E. J. Watson over deeds and titles might be hearing about that from Ed’s good friend Nap Broward, the next governor of Florida. Yessir, Ed said, he was on his way and didn’t care who knowed it.
So they all drank to Ed’s great future and their own safe journey to Key West, and after that he stepped out into the sun in his black hat and spread his boots and stuck his thumbs in that big belt of his and stood in front of the only house white-painted on this coast. Yessir, says Ed, I’ll be down that way tomorrow, have a look at my new property. That’s when Winky finally got around to notifying the new owner that those young Tuckers were still camped on Lost Man’s Key.
Before saying that, Winky let go his bow line—let the bow swing clear of the dock and turn downstream with the current. But hearing that news, Watson put his boot down on the stern line that was slipping off the dock, and the sloop swung back hard against the pilings. Still had his whiskey in his hand and still looked calm, but that calm was only just his way of getting set for the next move, same as a rattler gathering its coils, and his face warned ’em that good news better be next and damn quick, too.
Winky’s words come out all in a ball. He assured Ed that Wally Tucker had no claim on Lost Man’s Key, no rights at all. It was just that Atwells never used the place so they never seen no cause to run him off.
Watson nodded for a while, with Atwells setting in the boat saying nothing that might turn him ugly: they was nodding right along with Ed like a pair of doves. “I’ll tell you what you people do,” Ed said in a thick voice. He cleared his throat and spat the contents clear across their bow into the river. “What you do,” he said, “you notify that conch sonofabitch that E. J. Watson bought that quit-claim fair and square. And you tell him to get his hind end off that property just as fast as he can dump his drag-ass female aboard his boat and haul up that old chunk of wormrock that he calls an anchor. That clear enough?”
Watson’s fury was so raw that Winky got a scare: he had clean forgot Watson’s quarrel with the Tuckers. But what with all the whiskey he had drunk, he got his courage up and tried again: Only thing about it, Ed, young Tucker has built him a thatch-roof cabin and small dock, cleared a piece of land across the channel, got his crops in; also, his wife is about to bust with her first baby. Knowing how generous Ed could be, his neighbors hoped that maybe he could let them young folks finish out their season, have their child in peace. Reminded him that as the rightful squatter, he would get to inherit Tucker’s cabin and any and all improvements—
“No!” yelled Watson. Why in hell should he ride herd on them damned people? Atwells let Tucker on there, dammit, so it was up to them to get him off. And Winky said that sure was right, Ed, it was only that Tucker was a proud kind of young feller and it seemed too bad to tell him to clear off with all that labor wasted and nothing laid by for his family to eat and not one cent to show for his hard work—
“That’s enough!”
Watson’s boot was still pinning the stern line. The only sound in that slow heat was the current licking down along the bank. Waiting out that silence, Winky said, they felt like screeching. Finally Watson said, “I sure do hate to hear that kind of talk. Pride don’t give him no damn right to dispute the man that has paid cash for the title. Law’s the law.”
Winky couldn’t believe that a man so generous to his neighbors could turn cold-hearted so quick but he knowed Atwells was in the wrong. They should of got it straight with Tucker first, they would have to return the money. Being so nervous, Winky stuck his hand into his pocket kind of sudden, and the next thing he knowed he was eye to eye with a .38 revolver.
Very very very slow, Winky come up with Ed’s money, stood up in the boat, and held it out. Watson had put that gun away and he paid no attention to the money; he let Winky’s arm just hang there, never looked at him. He was red-eyed and wheezing, staring down into the current like he was planning what to do with these boys’ bodies.
Winky’s nerve broke and his voice, too. All he meant was, Winky squeaked—he was squeaking just describing it!—Atwells would be happy to return Mister Watson’s money until they got this Tucker business straightened out. Watson shook his head. “That’s your money,” he said, “You can stick that money up your skinny damn conch ass for all I care. That island’s mine. So get your squatters off my property by Monday next.”
Winky said, “Why
, sure thing, Ed, just write it on a paper what you want and we’ll take that paper straight to Wally Tucker.”
Ed Watson reared back and throwed his whiskey glass over the water as far as he could throw it, then stomped inside and scratched a note and brought it back. Never said good-bye, just headed straight into his field.
At Lost Man’s Key, Tucker read that note, read it again. He looked up at the Atwell boys, who could not read. Winky said, Well, what’s it say? And Tucker read it out:
Squatters and trespassers are hereby advised to remove themselves and all their trash human and otherwise from my property upon receipt of this notice or face severe penalty.
E. J. Watson.
Wally Tucker was a fair-haired feller of a common size, took the sun too hard, went around with a boiled face. Reading them words out loud made him redder still. He turned to look toward his little cabin, where his young woman stood watching from the door. In a queer voice, he told ’em how Ed Watson, drunk, took to patting Bet’s backside and how Bet had to slap him. “That’s why he calls her ‘trash,’ ” he whispered, dazed. “Bet’s fixing to have our baby any day now. She sure don’t need this kind of aggravation.”
Him and Atwells hunkered down and talked it over. “You fellers have sold our home right out from under us,” Wally told ’em, making angry X marks in the sand, “and you sold what you never even owned. This is state land, swamp-and-overflowed, think I don’t know that? You ain’t even got quit-claim rights no more cause you never squatted here and never made improvements.” He waved at his dock and cabin. “It should have been Bet and me was paid, not you.”
Winky glanced over at his brother, then fished out Watson’s envelope. “That ain’t the way we figure it here in the Islands,” he advised Tucker, “but we aim to be fair so we will split it with you.” Tucker snatched the wad and peeled off a few bills before handing it back. “Tell him he now owes you what he used to owe us in back pay.” He was writing his own note. “Tell him Bet and me ain’t getting off here till she has her baby.”