Langford moved behind his desk and waved me to a chair. “That so?” he said.
I took my hat off but remained standing, gazing out the narrow window at the storefront gallery across the street where on election day a Tippins crowd had been scattered by gunfire and the whine of bullets from the general direction of the saloon owned by Taff O. Langford, the incumbent’s cousin. I stayed where I was until a few regathered, then spoke the lines that won me the election:
“Goddammit, Frank, don’t stand there looming just cause you’re so tall.” Cole’s smile looked pinned onto his jowls. The eyes in his soft face were hard-the opposite of Langford, whose eyes were gentle in a face still more or less lean. Cole had a long curlicue mouth and nostrils cocked a little high like pink and hairy holes, snuffling and yearning for ripe odors. “First you take ol’ T. W.’s job and now you’re doggin Carrie’s daddy who ain’t even in your jurisdiction. And here Walt’s daddy ain’t been dead a year and Carrie’s mama fadin down right before our eyes. That’s what Walt here has to tend to every morning, noon, and night. And even so, you come banging in here-”
“Easy, Jim.” Langford was smiling, holding both hands high. “Frank and me rode together in the Cypress, we’re good friends. He’s always welcome.”
Jim Cole had been hollering so loud that folks had stopped out on the street under the window. What Cole was really angriest about was my refusal to support his alibi when, three months earlier, a revenue cutter impounded his ship at Punta Rassa. On her regular run, the
I said to Langford, “Trouble in the Islands.”
“I know that, Frank.”
“He’s in town, then?”
“No.” Walt raised his hands as if I’d said,
“Dammit, Walt, he’s got no
Langford accompanied me onto the landing. “He’s the only suspect, then?”
“So far.” I shrugged. “No known witnesses, no good evidence, and not much doubt.” I started down the stairs.
“Don’t upset Carrie, all right, Frank? She never saw him. He stopped only long enough to say his last good-byes to Mrs. Watson. Admitted there’d been trouble. She told Carrie.” Langford awaited me. “That’s the truth. He’s gone. Which don’t mean I will let you know if he comes back.”
Jim Cole boomed out, “If he comes back, I’m running that man for sheriff!” Langford guffawed briefly. “Ol’ Jim,” Walt sighed, pumping out another laugh, as if unable to get over such a comical person. I shook my head over ol’ Jim, too, to help Walt out. That old Indian watched us.
SARAH HARDEN
Mister Watson snuck back from north Florida a few years later, and after that he was seen twice each year. Stayed just long enough to see to his plantation, disappear again. He got away with behaving like nothing happened because that’s the way his neighbors behaved, too. Never so much as a scowl or a cold word, not even from folks such as us who was friends with those poor young people and had to bury them. Nobody accused, far less arrested. Them Tuckers were just runaways, just conchs, Key Westers-those were the excuses. But the real reason-and Owen was the only one who would admit it-was our fear. Knowing how bold the killer was, we knew he might be back. And when he came and seen he’d got away with it, he showed up more often, until finally he came back for good.
Not that Hardens were real warm to Mister Watson, the way we were before. But we weren’t as cold as I thought we should be neither, and he made it harder to be cold each time we seen him. He had eased up on his drinking and lost weight, he was cheerful and lively, and he got his plantation up and running in no time at all.
By now, me’n Owen was married up, but times was hard. Plume birds gone, the fishing poor-it was all we could do to get enough to eat. Mister Watson brought canned goods, extra supplies to tide us over, always protesting how he couldn’t use it; having been so poor himself, he said, he never liked to see stuff go to waste. He done the same for the whole Harden clan, even two-faced Earl who had tried so hard to get him arrested.
Me’n Owen done our best to repay him. Gave him fresh fish or turtle when we had some, manatee for stew, maybe palm hearts or wild limes, but we was always more beholden than a proud man like Owen knew how to live with, and his brother Webster felt the same. Only the older brother took advantage. Earl grabbed everything he could lay his hands on, then sniped at the man’s back as soon as his boat was out of sight. Jeered at Owen for not taking more while the taking was good, claimed Mister Watson was just paying in advance for Harden guns to back him up if it come to trouble over Tuckers. I hated Earl for saying that-hated him anyway for how mean he was to Henry Short, not to mention his own wife who was my sister Becky-but I couldn’t be so sure it wasn’t true. Earl’s ideas ate at Owen, too, until finally my man ordered me not to accept so much as a quart of syrup from Ed Watson.
BILL HOUSE
From the Frenchman I’d learned the names of his plume buyers and done my best to supply ’em. I even had neighbors helping out while the egrets lasted, cause people was dirt poor at Chokoloskee, all but Smallwoods. Storters still grew cane at Half Way Creek, Will Wiggins, too, but nobody lived there anymore. Mr. D. D. House had moved his cane field from Half Way Creek to the black soil of a shot-out rookery northeast of Chatham Bend that we called House Hammock. C. G. McKinney raised his garden produce on Injun mounds up Turner River and Charlie T. Boggess had a plot at Sandfly Key. Ted Smallwood had two hundred and fifty alligator pear trees on the old Santini claim, shipped pears by the barrel to Punta Gorda and on north by rail, five cents apiece. But most of ’em on Chokoloskee had give up their gardens. Too much rain or not enough for shell mound soil, which has no minerals to speak of: that soil got tuckered out in a few years, same as the women.
Course the tame Injuns, Seminoles and such, was taking the last plume birds same as us, and them rookeries over by Lake Okeechobee was shot out first. By the turn of the century the east coast birds was gone and the west coast birds was going and the white plumes was bringing twice their weight in gold. Men would fight over egrets and shoot to kill. At Flamingo, the Roberts boys went partners with the Bradleys and for a few years they done all right back in Cuthbert Lake, but elsewhere them birds growed so scarce that hunters would set up at night guarding what small rookeries was left. Them Audibones was agitating harder’n ever, and in 1901, plume hunting was forbidden: our native state of Florida had passed a law against our good old native way of living.
Most of us thought that law was meant to simmer down them birdlovers but all it ever done was put the price up. Only man who give a good goddamn about enforcement was Guy Bradley who got hisself hired the first Audibone warden in south Florida and took his job too serious for his own good.
When Guy was shot dead off Flamingo, July 19-0-5, rumors blamed Watson. Then another warden got axed to death near Punta Gorda and that one was laid on Watson, too. Course every man at Flamingo and Punta Gorda knew the names of the real killers but no one turned ’em in. I ain’t saying that’s good, I got my doubts, but any local judge knows better than to mess with an old-time clan that is only taking the wild creaturs that is theirs by God- given right.
