Watson, I’m ever so grateful for your company,” she said. “Why I’m so afraid of darkness I cannot imagine. But I’m less afraid on these windy nights than on the still ones when everything seems suffocated and the only sound is the mosquitoes whining at the screens. That’s when I fear there is something else out there, something that’s waiting.” She paused. “Something that will come for us, sooner or later.”
“Well, my dear, something will come for us one day, that is quite true.”
“Is it only death I fear? Because of my baby?” She seemed desperate. “I don’t really know what I’m afraid of. I’m just scared.”
“Not of me, I hope.” I was doing my best to seem benign and reassuring.
Laura studied me, a little feverish. “Uncle Edgar, you make everyone feel lively, that’s the ginger in you. But when you laugh, you sometimes seem to be laughing at our expense.” She waited. “Does everything strike you as absurd?”
“Not everything.”
Afraid she’d gone too far, she closed her eyes, perhaps to recoup her strength. I went to the window and peered out at the reflections of cold moonlight shattered by small wind waves on the river.
From behind me her voice came in a rush, “I’m frightened of a man who wears a gun under his coat in his own house out in the wilderness.” When I said nothing, she continued bravely, “I come down sometimes when I can’t sleep and there you are, still sitting in your corner on the porch, and all I can see is the glow of your cigar. Who are you waiting for?”
I returned to the bedside. I could have said I feared Wally Tucker’s brother, who had sworn vengeance in Key West saloons, or one of the Bass clan from Kissimmee, or that dirty bounty-hunting Brewer who came here with the Frenchman years ago. But of course it was none of these I feared and I had no idea who I was waiting for. I only knew that one day he would come-the Man from the North, as I had always thought of him. Since Chatham River was so far away in the wild south, in a brackish labyrinth of swamp and muddy river at the farthest end of the American frontier, the one I awaited could scarcely come from any other direction. Anyway, it was no known man with a name.
To Laura this would make no sense so I said, “Jack Watson, maybe.” I wanted to end this conversation since Kate, come to relieve my vigil, was in the door. “Long-lost brother,” I added, when they looked confused. I said good night and went away.
At daybreak, weeping, Kate brought Laura’s dead child, wrapped in fresh muslin. The young parents, shattered, thought he was a miscarriage, too early and too small for Christian rites, it seems Laura wanted me to handle it. I took the child from Kate and went outside. Upriver, I dug a little grave and kneeled and laid the bundle in and buried it, haunted by an image of that unborn babe at Lost Man’s Key gasping for life in its mother’s corpse under the current. Still kneeling, I exhumed the bundle, took it up. Lightly brushing off the dirt, I held it a few minutes before finding the resolve to part the muslin and confront the small blind shrunken face. Was this what Bet Tucker’s unborn had looked like? Still on my knees, I lifted him toward daybreak in the eastern sky over the Glades, then bent and kissed the tiny cold blue brow, greeting and parting.
ADDISON TILGHMAN WATSON
In the winter of 1907, suddenly, Billy Collins died and our guests had to leave. To Kate’s relief-she feared the thought of Chatham Bend without her Laura-we returned to Fort White with them and stayed on for the spring planting.
Laura dreaded moving in with Julian’s family and who could blame her? Granny Ellen was sharp-tongued as ever, and as for my sister, she had shut herself away even before her husband’s death, drifting deeper and deeper into shadow realms, leaving her younger children to Aunt Cindy’s care. Offered a roof at my house, even that tight-wound nephew of mine appeared relieved. Dear Laura hugged me with fond gratitude. “Please try to forgive those awful things I said at Chatham, Uncle Edgar. Please watch out for that Jack Watson,” she whispered. “Oh yes,” I said. “My shadow brother.” I tried to laugh at such a strange idea.
Kate Edna was near term with our second child. Knowing her Laura would be left behind, she missed Fort White even before the time came to leave for Chatham. More and more withdrawn, she barely put up with my attentions, devoting herself entirely to Ruth Ellen. Sometimes we did not touch each other for a fortnight.
When Addison Tilghman Watson came into the world, Mama assumed that the name commemorated Great- Uncle Tillman Watson at Clouds Creek; I did not disabuse her, being unable to explain the need to dedicate this fresh new bit of life to Cousin Selden.
Kate entreated me to let her stay a few months longer at Fort White, and so I returned to Chatham River by myself. In November, I met Kate and her babies at Fort Myers, where we spent Thanksgiving with the Langfords: Walter and his railroad friend, Mr. John Roach, Carrie had written, were still discussing my participation at Deep Lake. At supper, Jim Cole regaled the company with his story about a case in which one black man killed another in cold blood in front of four eyewitnesses. The young defense lawyer assigned by the court worked hard for his first client but it was hopeless, an open-and-shut case. To his astonishment, the judge ignored the jury verdict, set his client free. Congratulated by the prosecutor, he protested, “Are you people crazy? It was coldblooded murder! My client was guilty as all hell!” And the prosecutor took him by the arm and said, “Well, now, Lee Roy, this bein your first case and all, we didn’t want our home boy to come up a loser. Anyways, it was only some ol’ nigger, ain’t that right?”
Jim Cole told a story well and everybody laughed except for Kate, who just looked baffled. Embarrassed by her unworldly ways, I got somewhat drunk and spoiled the evening, picking stupid arguments. When no mention was made of Deep Lake, I grew furious, humiliated, having stooped to getting ourselves invited to this house for the sake of nailing down that job. Cole and Langford would make my crude behavior their excuse to put aside any talk of my participation but the real reason was more gossip and ugly rumors. I could only suppose that one source was my son Eddie in Fort White, who was always the first one with the news, bad news especially.
Carrie and Kate were still awkward with each other, very stiff. My daughter had invited us to stay on for their family Christmas, but Kate said she felt unwelcome at the Langfords. Once at Chatham, however, she could not stop crying at the prospect of a lonely Christmas far from home. “I hate this endless river, these green walls!” she wept. “I hate that awful crocodile!
All Kate wanted for Christmas was my promise to kill that log-like brute across the river (I tried but it was wary)-either that or take her “home” for a few months after the late winter harvest. Since I wished to go north anyway for the spring planting, I agreed. Kate was delighted, all the more so because her dear Laura would still be living in our house.
When the time came, I had misgivings. Young Wilson Alderman, whom I’d sent to Fort White to help Eddie on the farm, had returned to Chokoloskee to spend Christmas with his family. The Tolens had been defaming me while I was gone, he said, especially the shifty James, who had moved in with Sam at Aunt Tabitha’s house to help keep an eye on the Myers nephews, who were still challenging her will. Alderman warned me that the situation might be dangerous. I told Kate nothing about this, of course. We returned to Fort White in April 1908.
CHAPTER 7
CODE OF THE FRONTIER
In recent months, the fat widower Sam Tolen had taken bit and bridle off his drinking. He let his fields go, let
