Killing Mister Watson

So they drank to his success, and he drank to their safe journey and happy days down at Key West, and after that, he come out into the sun with that black hat on and spread his boots and stuck his thumbs in that big belt of his and stood in front of his fine house, to see 'em off. Yessir, says Ed, I'll be down that way tomorrow, have a look at my new property.

Casting off the lines, Winky decided he'd better advise the new owner about Wally Tucker farming Lost Man's Key. Seeing Mister Watson so excited, he had not got around to that, but he felt bolder with the whiskey, so he did.

Mister Watson took the news calm as you please. He come down to the water, not hurrying or nothing, and set his boot onto the stern line as it was slipping off the dock. The current had already caught the bow of their little sloop, and she swung downstream till she was snubbed, then warped back hard against the pilings. Watson had his whiskey in his hand, still looking amiable, but he never took his boot off of that line. Never said a word while the Atwells tried to figure what them blue eyes warned 'em had better be coming next, and damn quick, too.

Knowing Winky, I reckon he was winking, along with taking desperate care, he said, not to stare at Watson's boot, which was about on the same level with his face. Ed Watson had the smallest foot of any man his size you ever seen, it was one of the very first things that you noticed, and after that it was hard to take your eye off, even worse than another man's blind eye.

Finally Winky started talking, and his words come out all in a ball. He told Ed Watson that Wally Tucker never had no kind of claim on Lost Man's Key, nosir, no claim at all, it was just he had been on there for a while-

'I know how long that sonofabitch been on there-'

'-and being as how Atwells never used it, we never had the heart to run him off.'

Watson nodded and kept right on nodding, with the Atwells setting in the boat trying to show how much they agreed with him without saying nothing that might turn him ugly. They was nodding right along with him like a pair of doves.

'I'll tell you what you people do,' Ed Watson said after a while. He cleared his throat and spat clear across their boat, and the Atwells looked politely at his big ol' phlegm floating away on the black water. 'What you do, you notify that conch sonofabitch on your way home that the claim is sold to E.J. Watson, and you tell him to get his hind end off of there as soon as he can dump his drag-ass female and all the rest of his conch shit into his boat and haul up that old chunk of worm rock that he calls an anchor and get to hell back to Key West, where he belongs. Now how is that?'

The Atwell family being Bahamians, Winky didn't care much for that 'conch' talk, but what he said was 'That's just fine, Ed, not one thing wrong with it.'

Watson's fury was so raw that Winky got him a bad scare, knowing there was a shooting iron under that coat. Must been winking like a baby rabbit. He had clean forgot Watson's quarrel with the Tuckers, if he ever knowed about it. But what with all the whiskey he had drunk, he got his courage up and tried again. Thing was, he said, young Tucker had built him a nice thatch house and a good dock, and cleared off a good piece of land, and had his crops in, and his wife was about to bust with her first baby. Atwells knowed from their own firsthand experience how generous a man Ed Watson was-they let that sink in, Winky said-and maybe he could see his way clear to letting them young folks finish out their season.

Ed Watson didn't care one bit for that idea. Why should he ride herd on them damned people, with Lost Man's Key so far off down the coast? The Atwells had let Tucker on there, and it was up to them to get Tucker off there, right? And Winky said that sure was right, Ed, not one thing wrong about it.

'Something's eating you,' Ed said, after a moment, and took out his watch.

And Winky said, No, no, no, Ed! It was only that Tucker was a proud kind of young feller, and might not take to being told flat out to get his wife, who was in a family way, off of that Key with not a scrap laid by to eat, no place to go, and not a cent to show for his hard work.

Watson was looking down at his own boot where it trod the rope, and in that silence, Atwells said, they felt like screeching. There was no sound at all in that slow heat but the river sucking at the mangroves. Finally Watson said, 'I sure do hate to hear a white man talk that way. Where I come from, a damn squatter can be proud till he's blue in the face, that don't give him the right to go up against a feller that has bought and paid for legal title. Where I come from, the law's the law.'

Well, Winky didn't argue none with that. He just couldn't believe that a man so kind to all his neighbors could turn so cold-hearted so quick. Winky weren't by no means a bad feller, and he seen Atwells was in the wrong. They should of damn well got it straight with Tucker in the first place.

He decided to give Watson back his money. Kind of sudden-like-he was nervous and upset-he stuck his hand into his pocket, and the next thing he knowed, he was looking straight down the black hole of a Smith & Wesson.38. From that close up, it put him in mind of a cannon he seen once, down at Key West.

Very slow, young Mr. Atwell come up with that envelope and stuck it out, and very slow Ed Watson put that gun away under his coat.

Watson paid no attention to the money. He was angry he had showed that gun, and being drunk, he was red- eyed and wheezing heavy, staring away like he was thinking hard about something else. Winky murmured how he sure was sorry for giving Mister Watson such a turn, and when Watson just grunted, looking past him down the river, as if planning what he aimed to do with these boys' bodies, Winky's nerve broke and his voice broke, too. What he meant was, Winky squeaked-he got nervous all over again, just describing it-what he meant was, Atwells would be happy to return the money until they got this Tucker business straightened out. But Watson only shook his head and finally Winky's arm got tired and he put the money back into his pocket.

By now, all the Atwells wanted was to get to any other place as quick as possible. But Watson stood there, his boot on the rope, and all Winky could think about was trying to look away from that little boot. Finally Ed blinked, kind of surprised, as if he had just woke up from a long dream-them's Winky's words-and found these strangers setting at his dock.

'You people can return that money,' he says in a thick voice, 'or you can give the money to that fucking Tucker, or you can stick it up your skinny damn conch ass. But no matter what you do with it, E.J. Watson bought that claim on Lost Man's Key, and he wants them people off of it by Monday next.'

Talk as rough as that kind of took the fun out of the visit. So Winky said, All right, then, Ed, why don't you just write out a paper saying what you want, and we'll take that paper down to Wally Tucker.

Watson reared back and throwed his whiskey glass as far as he could throw it, way out halfway across the Chatham River. And he stomped inside and scratched out a quick note and brought it back to them. He wasn't wearing his coat no more, and he didn't wave at 'em, nor watch 'em go. Drifting downstream toward the Bend, they seen him heading back into his field. Said young Rob just turned away and kept on working.

Wally Tucker was a fair-haired feller of a common size. Took the sun too hard, went around with a boiled face. Slowly, he read Watson's words, then looked up at the Atwell boys, who couldn't read.

So Winky said, Well, what's it say, then? And Wally read it off:

The quit-claim to Lost Man's Key has been sold lawfully to the undersigned on present date. All squatters and trespassers and their kind are strongly advised to remove themselves and all their trash human and otherwise immediately upon receipt of this notice or face severe penalty. (signed) E.J. Watson.

Reading them words out loud like that made Tucker so plain furious he flung the note away, but Winky picked it up before he left, we seen it later. He turned around and looked back at his new house, where his young wife stood watching from the door. Told 'em Watson once grabbed at Bet's backside and she had slapped him, that's why he insulted her. 'She never told me what he done till yesterday. Bet's going to have her baby any day now,' he said, kind of dazed. 'She don't need this kind of aggravation.'

Then him and the Atwells hunkered down and looked out over the water for a while, getting their breath. 'You people have sold our home right out from under us,' he told them, making angry X marks in the sand, 'and you sold what you never even owned, what you never had no right to, by the law. This is state land, swamp and overflowed, think I don't know that? Atwells ain't got quitclaim rights, cause you never squatted here, and you never made no improvements.' He tossed his head toward his house and dock. 'If any man was paid, it should been me.'

Winky glanced over at his brother Edward, and then he took out Watson's envelope. 'That ain't the way we figure it down in the Islands,' he warned Tucker, 'but we aim to be fair, and we will split it with you.' For the second time that day the money was held out, and for the second time nobody took it. Then Tucker snatched it and peeled off sixty dollars before handing it back.