“If Cox is taken alive,” I said, “it becomes your word against his, and his word might get you hung even if you’re innocent. If I deputize you, you can go kill him legally or help him escape.”
Disgusted, he released the revolver. “Don’t try reloading.” He took up his own weapon. I rose carefully to my feet. “Mr. Watson, you are under arrest.” I stuck my hand out to receive his gun. “Your clean record in Lee County will help, of course-”
“Just shut your stupid mouth, all right?”
Waving me ahead of him onto the deck, Watson turned his back as he closed the door behind him. Was he inviting me to jump him, try to overpower him? To the back of his head, I said, “If you go down there and shoot Cox, you’ll be making a bad mistake. You’ll be suspected of those murders and charged with a new one.”
Watson said, “You’re a fucking idiot.” Seeing his expression, I was suddenly so scared I had to piss. “Just trot over to the store,” he said, contemptuous, “and don’t look back.”
In a stew of bad emotions, I crossed the moonlit sand. Before going inside to brave the questions, I reloaded my gun, peering about into the night. My nerve had unraveled, I was exhausted. I had no idea where he had gone and no stomach for pursuit. I should go back to Fort Myers, wait for the Monroe sheriff, find some deputies. Whatever I did, Ed Watson would reach Chatham Bend with a three-day head start.
In the heavy wash of seas in the night channel, I pissed my fear and my defeat into the roaring dark.
MAMIE SMALLWOOD
When E. J. Watson came back south on October 21st, he was red-eyed with hard travel, looked half crazy with exhaustion; his eyes were dull and his teeth mossy, and that shiny auburn hair looked dank and dead. While Ted fueled his boat, he stretched out on our long counter with his revolver on his chest, breathing heavy, one eye on the door. Told us Sheriff Tippins had refused to deputize the only man who could come up on John Smith unsuspected so he had no choice but to deputize himself. We advised him to shoot Smith down same as a panther or a wolf, and he said he needed a few buckshot loads to put a stop to that mean varmint. (By this time, of course, we knew from Wilson Alderman that John Smith’s real name was Leslie Cox.)
Back then, most shotgun shells were paper-wrapped so all we had were storm-soaked loads, all swollen. “These ain’t the shells you want when you go
That day Bill was working at House Hammock. When Daddy House and Charley Johnson, a few others, showed up with a plan to arrest him, he had his double-barrel out where the men could see it, said he’d come too far to tolerate interference. He called to Edna, “I’ll be back for your birthday, sweetheart!” as if to warn them not to try to stop him. Picked up the gun, walked down to the shore kind of sideways, pushed off in his boat.
Daddy House, who had some dander, called out, “If you are aiming to come back, you better bring Cox with you.” Ed Watson said, “Is that a warning, Mr. House?” And Daddy said, “Take it any way you want to, Mr. Watson.” E. J. didn’t like that, not one bit. “Dead or alive?” he said, and Daddy said, “I reckon dead will do.” And Watson said, “If I don’t bring him, I will bring his head. That good enough?” Gunned his motor loud to drown out Daddy’s answer.
If that feller had one bit of sense, we’d seen the last of him, those men promised one another, same as they did earlier that week. Maybe we were finished with him but he weren’t finished with us, I thought, not with his family left behind for hostage.
E. J. was hardly out of sight when Edna felt a shift in the air like a cold draft through the door crack. Folks moved out of her way, wouldn’t meet her eye. It got so bad she couldn’t let her kids out of her sight for fear they might be harmed. The silence that followed that poor body all around our ruined island was nothing but pure fear turning to hate-fear of her husband and his murdering outlaws, and more fear yet because her being here with his three children might draw that devil back. All of a sudden they resented this fool girl who had never learned what bloody breed of man fathered her children-that’s what Mama and some other biddies took to muttering. And coldest of all, poor Edna told me after it was over, were those fair-weather Watson friends where she and her kids were lodged.
HENRY SHORT
On that first Black Monday come three murders at the Bend. Second Monday, that was the Great Hurricane. Third was Monday October 24th of 1910, goin on toward evening.
House men was ready. Hearing that boat, Old Mist’ Dan and his three boys loaded their guns and headed over to the shore. Mis Ida waved me to the cookhouse, told me to go with ’em. Look after Mist’ Dan, she said, on account he was all agitated, fired up, might take and do some foolishness, get her boys killed. But it was her was agitated, not Mist’ Dan. Mr. D. D. House always knew just what he wanted, he had set like glue.
I stood there looking straight ahead like I was hit by lightning. No nigger had no business over there, she knew that, but being so frightened for her men, she never cared what fool thing she told a colored man to do.
When I started to foller ’em, Mis Ida called after me, “Where is your rifle, Henry? You take that rifle, hear?” I was so scared I sagged down to my knees, went to rolling my eyes back like some gospel nigger.
“No ma’am, no please no, Mis Ida, Mist’ Dan ain’t told me come! Ain’t no place for no nigger with no shootin iron, no, ma’am!”
Miz Ida got all flustered up and angry. Commenced to hollering how I owed my life to Houses on account Mist’ Dan done saved this colored child back up the Georgia road and raised him up in a fine Christian family. Was this the gratitude they got? Those was the words I was most afraid of-how these kin’ly white folks saved this pickaninny’s life so the very least that he could do was give it back.
Miz Ida sunk down a-weeping and a-praying, got the Good Lord on her side for sure. I known right then that Henry Short was done for. I mumbled, “Yes’m,” went to fetch my old Winchester.30-30, which I kept oiled and polished up like new. “See there!” she yelled. “ ’Member how Mr. House give you that rifle, Henry? How he done spoiled you? So mind you load it good! You never know!”
Oh I knew, I knew.
As I passed the store, Mist’ Smallwood warned me I was making a mistake, but being a nigger, I never had no choice. I was praying, praying, praying for some sign. All I wanted was some place I could hide out from life till I was safe again. In them days, his safety was all a black man could ask for.
BILL HOUSE
When I got back from House Hammock, Mamie told me that Watson came through and some men collected and our dad told Watson he must wait there for the sheriff. Watson declared he’d seen him just the day before at Marco, said unless they stood aside, the killer Cox was going to escape. Claimed it was his bounden duty to them good friends that perished on his property to straighten out that blood-splattered sonofabitch once and for all. They never realized his shotgun was empty all the while he was bluffing them to let him go. My dad still wanted to arrest him, put a stop to Ed J. Watson once and for all, but none of them others had the stomach for it. Not till his boat was under way and disappearing out of sight did the men start in about how they would of grabbed him but for this and that and how they aimed to take care of him the very next time he tried his tricks around these parts. That sheepish bunch that was aiming to detain Ed Watson lined up instead to wave good-bye. He had talked his way into the clear again, just like he done so many times before. That feller was a borned politician, could of got to be
