Killing Mister Watson

postmaster and trader and biggest landowner on Chokoloskee, and never robbed nor killed to get there, neither. Course C.G. McKinney and William Wiggins kept their little stores across the island, but we was the main trading post on Chokoloskee from the day we opened, and we are still in leadership today.

Ted Smallwood worked hard for everything he had-getting him to stop work was the problem! If a man had money in his hand, Ted would come down in his nightshirt just to wait on him, even on Sundays. But this man Watson never lacked for money, not since the first day that he showed up here. The Good Lord only knows where that money came from, and how much innocent blood might of been spilled.

That year we had us a young preacher that the skeeters hadn't yet run off the island, and this man of God came hurrying down to meet the newcomer, tell him how welcome he sure was to worship with us on a Sunday, when the Good Lord hung His hat in Chokoloskee. Mister Watson told the preacher that Chatham Bend was a long way from the house of God, but he certainly intended to continue his lifelong custom of reading aloud from the Bible on the Lord's Day whether his people needed it or not.

When everybody laughed, C.G. McKinney frowned. He pulled his long beard and he coughed, as sharp and sudden as a dog, to show folks he could take a joke but didn't like no jokes about the Bible. Besides, C.G. McKinney was our local humorist and never was one to encourage jokes from other people. This was the year we took over his post office, and without none of our mail to read, he was writing up our local news for the county paper, and if any jokes was to be cracked, it was our newshawk that was going to crack 'em or know the reason why. So what he done, he told the story of poor Reverend Gatewood, first man of God back in '88 over at Everglade. Reverend Gatewood come to the Bay on the old Ploughboy, and his first sacred duty on arrival was to preach last words over the body of a man killed in a dispute with the boat captain during the voyage. Captain Joe Williams was a woman man who was always in trouble with some husband or other, and the feller he put an end to was well liked, so Captain Joe had to lay low for some years after.

This Captain Williams was the selfsame feller who bought the honey farm from William Wiggins's brother at Wiggins Pass. Folks used to say that Captain Joe give some of his honey to Mary Hamilton at Fakahatchee when that old mulatta man of hers weren't looking, give her a boy with honey-colored hair.

I'm sure that Mister Watson knew the Gatewood story, but he had the manners to pretend he never heard it. Said he sure hoped good ol' Captain Joe had paid for all his sins, cause what was needed in the Islands was some law and order. Hearing that, Isaac Yeomans had a whooping fit till his eyes watered, and even Mister Watson had to laugh a little, though his laugh was quiet. Our men liked to tell each other that Ed Watson always spoke more quiet the more he got riled up, but most of 'em had no idea what they was talking about.

After the Santini business, when word come out about Belle Starr, a story got going how our Mister Watson had throwed in with those Jameses and Youngers who rode with Quantrill in the border wars and become outlaws. Our men could talk of nothing else for weeks. You would have thought them cold-blooded desperaders was the greatest Americans since Lighthorse Harry Lee. And some way, just for knowing outlaws and getting the blame for killing that outlaw queen, Ed Watson became some kind of a hero, too. If he'd showed up with a jug of moonshine and a bugle yelling Come on, boys, are you Americans or ain't you? Jump in them boats, we're headed for them Philo-peens, see if we can't finish off them Spaniards, why, half the fool men on the island would have marched off after him like the Rough Riders charging up ol' San Juan Hill, flags flying, tears in their eyes, without once asking where in heck they might be going, or what was right or wrong in the eyes of God.

'God works in mysterious ways,' Mister Watson told us. 'We must pray for the violent as well as for the victims.' That prayer sure startled our poor preacher, who was small in the head, with tired ears, looked less like our shepherd than a sheep. He said in a kind of little bleat, 'Amen.'

Next thing we knew, Mister Watson was looking fierce, pounding his palm. Everyone fell still like they was in church and the preacher commencing to hand down the Word. 'If the Ten Thousand Islands have a future,' he declared, 'and I, for one, aim to see to it that they do, then those who place themselves above the law have no place in a decent law-abiding community!'

Everyone stared and he stared right back with a great frown like Jehovah. 'A-men!' he shouted, at which Isaac give a whoop which he cut off short, as if Mister Watson had shot off his Adam's apple. Excepting Isaac, my Ted was about the only one who dared to laugh, and even Ted held off a minute, and his chuckle never had much heart to it. Then Charlie T. laughed, imitating Ted, and Isaac whooped again and slapped his thigh, and some women started in to hissing about sacrilege-they was thrilled!-and some just tittered, tee-hee-hee, you know.

'Good thing you ain't smiling, girl,' Grandma Ida said, with one of her big sniffs, to make sure this Mr. E.J. Watson heard her good. No, I wasn't smiling, I was vexed, cause this bold man was treating us like a bunch of ninnies. Mister Watson seen I seen this, and his gaze held me, them chestnut brows and blue eyes of soft stone. Mamie Smallwood and her brothers were not liable to forget about those Tuckers and he knew it, he knew what he was up against with our House family. And so he gave me that quick wink, the kind of wink made all our hopes and struggles in this world seem kind of silly, due to our sinful foolishness and greed. I bit my lip so as not to giggle, I pretended I never even seen it, because nothing mattered, according to that wink. It didn't matter that our mortal days were bloodsoaked, cruel, and empty, with nothing at the end but disease and darkness.

Mister Watson sighed and said how homesick he had got for fresh palm heart and oyster-flavored pork at Chatham Bend, and how fine it felt to be back home in the Islands.

All the while young Mrs. Watson smiled politely, though she never left off murmuring to her baby. She had nice manners by our local standard, but she was tuckered out, looked a bit peaked. As the poor thing had a babe in arms and another on the way, Ted whispered it was only fitting to put 'em up in our house for the night. I didn't want to but I had to. Besides Laura Wiggins, nobody else had a spare room to put 'em in, on account of we had planned our house for children. Also-I might's well admit it-I didn't want just anybody claiming Mister Watson, who was Ted's friend before he ever knew most of these others.

Aunt Lovie Lopez-Penelope Daniels she was, married Gregorio-Aunt Lovie was jealous, and she could not hide it. She said, What? You aiming to take a desperader in your house with two helpless little children? She meant Thelma and Marguerite, cause Robert and the youngers wasn't born yet. Ain't you afraid? Aunt Lovie said.

I was afraid, all right, but my man weren't, and that was good enough for me, I said. Wouldn't be near to good enough for me, Aunt Lovie said, and they don't come no meaner'n my husband.

Gregorio Lopez, he come with the bark on, he was rough. Course you had to be mean if you was a Spaniard, back in them grand patriotic days. From Injun times, Spaniards wasn't popular in Florida, nor Cubans neither, and that is about the only thing ain't going to change.

That evening Mister Watson gave us all the news of Columbia County, where the Smallwoods came from. Columbia always were a bond between them. Mrs. Watson told me all about the fine new farmhouse he had built up near Fort White, how he got that land producing again after years of ruin, and how he aimed to do the same at Chatham Bend. She confided she was native born there in Columbia, said she knew about the blame was laid on Mister Watson in his youth due to his hellfire temper, as she called it. If she knew his evil reputation here, she did not let on. She was out to redeem him, it was plain to see, she had made that her holy mission in this life, she was real wide-eyed and serious about it.

Kate Edna Bethea, she was. He called her Kate, but that name was for him. All the rest of us that came to love her called her Edna.

'He's got him a feud going in Columbia,' Ted whispered when he came to bed that night.

'That why he got so homesick for these parts?' Ted reached across and put his hand over my mouth, because Watsons was just the other side of a slat wall. I was irked that Ted was so impressed by Mister Watson, so proud about having a killer for a friend, though he wouldn't admit that in a month of Sundays. Saying nothing, I just lay there in the dark, hearing the south wind toss the palms, the hard little waves lick at the landing. I had this intrusion in my heart, as if something bad was growing through the wall from the other room. Ted was restless as a deaf old dog, puffing and twitching. I'd be darned if I would show my curiosity, knowing he was waiting for that across the dark. Finally he muttered, 'Family trouble. Couple bad actors name of Tolen. Watson come back down here to cool off.'

'Cooled them off, too? Or are they still alive?'

'Still alive, I figure.'

There was something eager in my man's voice I didn't want to hear. I picked it up every time he told them stories of the mayhem he had seen up around Arcadia or over to the east coast, Lemon City. Being a peaceable