Killing Mister Watson

hard, tapped his temple, waved both hands, like a speared frog. 'No, not foo! He is-accurs- ed?'

We never got cured of Chevelier's idea that Watson could not help himself, that he was cursed. That was the excuse we give ourselves for liking him. My Sarah, who had real good sense, thought the Frenchman must be right, and so did some of 'em in Chokoloskee. But now I ain't sure what we meant by 'cursed,' unless God cursed him. If God did that, then who was we to blame, God or Ed Watson?

Chokoloskee never known the Tuckers-not to eat and joke with, the way we done, not to bury-and in a few years the whole story got changed. Henry Short, he knew the truth of it, but he had sense enough to keep his mouth shut, even when a rumor come up from Key West about some young boy who had been visiting with Wally Tucker, and it was recalled how the Atwells thought they seen him. Smallwood and them put out that story how Watson killed 'Tucker and nephew,' not wanting to believe such a good neighbor would put a bullet through the head of a young woman. It took them Hamiltons, people said, to make up such a frightful story. And by the end of it, my brother Gene, who had seen right up Bet Tucker's skirt, came to agree with 'em.

We don't know a thing about no boy. But Watson-or somebody-killed Bet Tucker, and the four of us buried her that direful day.

Two deputies showed up a few days later, said the Key West sheriff had been advised by a Mac Sweeney that foul murders had been done at Lost Man's River. This Sweeney declined to name no suspects, but Sheriff Knight had reason to suspect Mr. E.J. Watson. 'Told us to deputize you mulatta boys here at Wood Key,' one feller said.

Pap never give 'em a flat no, just started in to teasing. Pap never teased lest he was angry. Spoke in a big muddy groan, more like a cow, moaning and mumbling and taking on how his only begotten sons was too young to die just cause these deputies was looking to get their ears shot off, and anyways, Mister Watson was their friend and generous neighbor, and how could Hamiltons turn around and go against him?

Walter had went out the door as soon as the law come in, that was his answer. How 'bout you, boy? Two dollars just for guiding us, they said, and I said, Nosir, I sure won't. I felt sick angry at Ed Watson, and wondered what Pap might have said if he'd seen and smelled and handled that cold flesh, but I told the deputies I didn't want no part of it.

Our mam was snorting loudly in disgust-she was disgusted most all of the time, on general principles. Pap said, Maybe you fellers can deputize that big white woman that's setting over there fixing them snap beans. She's tough as a nut, can shoot a knot out of wet rope, and won't settle for no ifs, ands, or buts.

Mam banged down her pot and went inside.

The deputies was scared of Mister Watson, and their nerves was short, so what they done, they advised Richard Hamilton that this were a pure case of cold-blooded murder and no time for no damn mulatta jokes. And I said, that's twice. Better take care who you go calling mulattas.

Pap hushed me. He said then, Don't you men get us wrong. This family don't hold with cold-blooded murder, nor warmblooded neither, cause unlike some of your more common Christians, us Romans don't hold with murder of no size nor shape, nor race, color, nor creed. And some people was bloody murdered, they had that part right, but he hadn't seen no proof against Ed Watson.

Gene had come in just in time to catch our daddy playing possum. Hell, Pap, he yelled, we seen his keel track! Ain't that proof? And Daddy said, Might been proof, but like I say, I never seen it.

He was finished now, and his face closed down, but Gene did not take warning, he was too busy showing off for them two men. He stepped forward and got deputized, proud as a turkey, he even threw 'em a salute. Once he was deputy, he got to jeering, said, 'Looks like Pap and his precious John Leon is scared to death of ol' Ed Watson.'

Pap grabbed my wrist before I went for my own brother. You said a mouthful that time, Gene, Pap says, and now he's talking in his normal voice, only dead cold. You might got something there, Gene, who's to know?

Time Gene left to guide them deputies up Chatham River, he had already begun to sweat. Looked back over his shoulder, hoping his father would forbid his son to go. But Pap took no notice, he just set there in the sun, whittling him a new net needle out of red mangrove. He was finished with Gene, who had went against his father. Rest of his life, he was civil to him, but he never spoke to him again like his own son. That's the way our daddy was. Never got angry, but when he dropped something, he was finished with it, like he'd took a crap. Life was too short to waste time looking back, is what he said.

When the boat was out of sight, Pap said, 'Maybe Eugene was cut out to be a sheriff's deputy, what do you think?' And late in life, a sheriff's deputy is exactly what Gene Hamilton become.

When the deputies dropped Gene off on the way back south, they wasn't going to let on what they seen. Gene was raring to tell but he was told, You ain't got no authority to comment. However, once Liza got to flirting 'em along, it come out quick as a squirt out of a goose.

They had found the Watson Place empty, cleaned right out. On the table was poor Wally's crumped-up message, the big letters printed onto it with pencil. Ed Watson never burned the evidence, and the deputies never bothered to collect it, cause they couldn't read. It was Gene had sense enough to bring it home. When he pulled it out, them deputies told us kind of cross that in a court of law handwrit notes weren't hardly worth the paper they was printed on.

Miss Sarah Johnson took one look, then sung out kind of sharp, This here note might mean nothing to deputies, but it is proof to anyone can read that Wally Tucker was the fool who got Bet murdered! Through her tears, she read out loud:

MISTER WATSON

I WON'T GET OFF OF LOST MAN'S KEY TILL AFTER HARVEST

COME HELL OR HIGH WATER

Hell showed up quicker than poor Wally Tucker had expected, and high water, too.

References to E.J. Watson's career in the Ten Thousand Islands appear at least as early as Florida Enchantments, published in New York in 1908. This account (referred to previously) describes the turn-of-the-century adventures in the South Florida wildernesses of a wealthy northerner, Mr. Anthony Dimock, and his son Julian, who served as his photographer.

At least three figures in the Watson history are associated with the Dimocks. Bill House and George W. Storter Jr. (later Justice of the Peace) served him as guides, and Walter Langford apparently received the author at Langford's Deep Lake citrus plantation in the Big Cypress. Because Mr. Watson was still very much alive, his name is changed in this lively account from E.J. Watson to J.E. Wilson, but there is no question of the real identity of that 'genial' man referred to here as 'the most picturesque character on the west coast of Florida.' The otherwise ironical author seems in awe of 'J.E. Wilson' and fascinated by the legends already beginning to surround him-the first but by no means the last writer to come under our subject's powerful spell.

While making no specific mention of the Santini episode, the Dimocks confirm Mr. Watson's reputation as the barroom terror of Key West. (In this regard, see also 'The Bad Man of the Islands,' in Pioneer Florida, by the noted cattleman and former mayor of Tampa, Mr. D.B. McKay- specifically a lively account of an episode in the Knight & Wall hardware store in Tampa when Mr. Watson, arriving drunk, overheard a conversation about a dancing school, whereupon he 'drew a large pistol and fired a shot in the floor near [his] feet and ordered, 'Well, let us see how nice you can dance!'' No one was hurt, and the miscreant was taken off to jail.)

The Dimock book refers to Brewer's failed arrest attempt and another such attempt by a Key West deputy who was disarmed and put to work in Watson's canefield. (Just when this oft-attested-to event occurred I have been unable to determine, due to the disappearance of old sheriff's records from Key West.) According to Dimock, this former deputy became his captor's admirer and friend, and on a later occasion introduced him in a Key West saloon as 'Mr. J.E. Wilson of the Ten Thousand Islands' who was preparing to shoot out the lights, whereupon the clientele ran out the door. Whether or not this story is true, it seems safe to assume that Mr. Watson was chronically uproarious at Key West.

The Dimock book supports the local contention (and my own) that E.J. Watson was but one of many malefactors in this wild region: