Killing Mister Watson

he said. That's right, boy, Mister Watson would agree, kind of exasperated. Because you are bone lazy to start with and too weak for a day's work on account of drink! And Tant would moan real doleful, saying, Oh, Sweet Jesus, ain't it the God's truth! And Mister Watson cursed and laughed and let him go.

Now Tant was strong and wiry as well as lazy, but he purely hated being stooped over all day amongst the bugs and snakes, arms wore out, and brains half-cooked, and the earth whirling-you was seeing things, that's how frazzled out you was with weariness and thirst and common boredom, whacking away in the wet heat at that sharp cane that could poke your eye out if you were not careful. On top of half killing you, the work was risky, cause them big damn cane knives sharp as any razor could glance off any whichy-way when a man was tired. One bad swing from the man next to you could take your ear off, or your knife might glance off last year's stalks and slash your own leg artery or sinew.

Most of our cutters was just drinkers or drifters, or wanted men, or hard-luck niggers, maybe young folks like them Tuckers from Key West, trying to get a start. Mister Watson scraped 'em off the docks at Port Tampa and Key West, sometimes Fort Myers, brought 'em back and lodged 'em in a dormitory we built back of the boat shed. Told 'em the roof and corn-shuck mattresses was theirs to enjoy to their heart's content but half their day's pay would be deducted for their grub. Made you sad to see them worn-out people working them hard fields in their old broken shoes, never had straw hats nor gloves nor canvas leggings like what we had less they rented 'em from Mister Watson. Anyplace else, they was here today and gone tomorrow, but they was stuck on Chatham Bend, couldn't get off. Kept 'em scared of running off with all his talk of Injuns and cottonmouths and giant gators, and anyways, there was nowhere to run to, nothing but mangrove and deep-water rivers, miles from anywhere. Knowing how hard it was to find trained help, Mister Watson made sure they was always owing, never let 'em back aboard his schooner until they was too sick or lunatic to work. By that time they was begging to swap any back pay they had coming for a boat ride to most anywheres, having come around to Mister Watson's view that they was a lot more trouble than they was worth.

Sometimes his wife might protest, saying, Do unto others, Mister Watson, as you would have them do unto you. And he would say, They would do the same unto Mister Watson first chance they got-that's human nature. You're a hard-hearted man, she would say, shaking her head. And he would answer, I am not hardhearted, Mandy, but I am hardheaded, as a man must be who aims to run a prosperous business and support his family.

Only man who stood up to him was a young feller name of Tucker who needed his back pay before we got the harvest finished in the autumn. Mister Watson got so irate that he run him off without no pay at all. But Tucker was mad, too, and hollered out, This business ain't finished by a long shot! And Mister Watson yelled, Might be finished by a short shot, I ever catch you on this place again.

The only feller who ever come back for more was a drifter and drinker, Old Man Waller, who had the same way with hogs as Mister Watson did. When Waller was sober, them two could talk hogs day and night. So Old Man Waller got put in charge of livestock, and snuck out of a fair amount of field work. One evening when Mister Watson was away he got drunk with Tant and went to the hog pen, give the hogs a speech and their freedom, too, and the hogs went straight to the damned syrup mash, got drunk right along with Old Man Waller. One full sow that went to sleep it off got half et by a panther, piglets and all. I told Old Waller it wasn't funny, but he didn't agree.

Waller decided to leave Chatham Bend with Tant early next morning, but a year later he showed up again with a fine hog, said he had seen the error of his ways and made amends. Mister Watson explained that Old Man Waller had replaced the hog but was wanted for hog theft at Fort Myers. But Waller said, Nosir, what it was-begging your pardon, Mister Watson-island life has been prescribed for me by my physician.

As time went on, something changed there at the Bend. I never was around too much of it, I was off running the boat most of the time, but everybody got to drinking up Tant's aguedente, they got the idea that they could let things go. Mister Watson would shout, 'This place ain't fit for niggers!' and they'd jump up, rattle things around, go right back drinking. Tant might even holler out, Did I hear 'niggers'? How about white trash? How about outlaws? Then Tant'd pretend he'd scared himself half to death, and apologize for calling Mister Watson a outlaw when he weren't nothing but a common desperader. Mister Watson might grunt a warning, but pretty soon he'd say, To hell with it, and pour more liquor. He grew heavy.

Finally our boss went on a rampage, just took and cleared that whole bunch out of there after the harvest, including some no-account niggers he brung in to cut the cane. Told 'em they had drank up all their pay, and his profits, too. He picked a day when Tant were gone, cause he hated to blame a single thing on Tant, who drank more than the rest of 'em put together.

That day I had come in from Key West, and I hardly had the boat tied up when them females and young come quacking down the path like a line of ducks, with Mister Watson right behind kicking their bundles-should of been kicking their fat bee-hinds, he said later. Hollered at me to get 'em the hell out of there before he lined 'em up and blowed their brains out, if they had any. Told me to take 'em out into the Gulf and throw 'em to the sharks, for all he cared.

I don't guess he meant that but they thought he did. Nosir, they weren't sassing him that afternoon! Them women was dead sober, they looked scared. They finally knowed that they had played with fire. It was only after we dropped down out of the river and was safe at sea that they started in complaining they had not been paid. If I had not come back there when I did, Cousin Jennie blubbered, that ginger-haired monster would have murdered the women and children, never thought twice about it.

In years to come, when them kinfolks who kept house with Mister Watson was living at Pavilion and Caxambas, they would repeat Cousin Jennie's words when they was drinking-not spiteful, you know, they done it to get attention to theirselves, get some excitement out of life, cause they was all of 'em sweet on Mister Watson, always would be. I never paid none of 'em much mind, and don't today.

All the same, it was them Daniels women got that story started how Mr. E.J. Watson always killed his help on payday, and of course our competition in the syrup business was glad to hear an explanation of how come Mister Watson done so much better raising cane than they did.

That puts me in mind of his old joke down in Key West. Feller would ask him, What you up to these days, E.J.? And he'd wave his bottle and yell out, Raising Cain!

Heck, even I got that one! I would laugh my head off every time I heard it, and told it every time I had the chance, till folks begun to ask me to hush up about it. Well, I'd tell'm, it just goes to show you it ain't true that Henry Thompson got no sense of humor, way some say! Heck, I'd say, I like a joke good as the next man! They'd laugh along with those words, too, though some way I felt kind of left out.

Anyway, I never knowed him to be nothing but fair in his dealings with his help, he was hard but fair, and Hiram Newell, S.S. Jenkins, and all them other ones that worked for him would say the same. As for niggers, I never heard a nigger speak a word against him.

I took them women on back to Caxambas and stopped over for supper to George Roe's place, where Miss Gertrude Hamilton from Lost Man's River, age fourteen, was a new boarder. By that time Henrietta had hitched up with Old Man Roe, and a few years later, must been 19 and 03, some Yankees started the Caxambas clam factory, so our whole gang went down to Pavilion Key for the clam fishery. Uncle Jim Daniels was the crew boss, and Mr. and Mrs. Roe had the store and post office, and Aunt Josie was there, too, with her latest husband. Josie took seven by the time the smoke cleared, counting the one that she took twice, and she saw every last one of them fellers into his grave.

Speaking of funerals, old Johnny Gomez drowned in 1900, tangled his cast net on his ankle, looked like, and the weights pulled him off balance, tugged him overboard. He was still tangled when some men from Marco, stopping by on their way north from Key West, found him hooked by his trousers in the mangrove at low tide, with his nose-warmer washed up alongside him. Had a funeral at Everglade, and Mister Watson's good friend R.B. Storter- Mister Watson always called him Bembery-took the Widow Gomez home to Panther Key. She was still on the young side so didn't stay long. In later years, running the Gladiator for Mister Watson, I used Johnny Gomez's thatch shack for my camp when I stopped off at Panther Key to get my water and moon a little about Carrie, and when Hiram Newell took over my job, he used it, too. Matter of fact, it was Hiram found Old Johnny's body, him and his brother-in-law Dick Sawyer. Dick was another friend of Mister Watson, least he claimed to be. Claimed he was in the bunch that seen Santini's throat slit, and helped to get the knife away from Mister Watson.

One afternoon of autumn, 1901, I seen the towering black smoke of burning canefield from way out in the Gulf off Pavilion Key, and the fire was still going strong all the way upriver, the growing roar like storm, and the hard