Killing Mister Watson

ahead of him. Said there'd been trouble, said he'd run off to avoid testifying. Walter Alderman would say no more in case Mister Watson got turned loose and headed south. And sure enough, that man came back to us right after the New Year, early 1909, this time for good.

Based on the account of Dr. Herlong, Mr. Watson returned to Columbia County after the Tucker killings (which were never investigated, to judge from the fact that no attempt to arrest him was made during his final sojourn in the Ten Thousand Islands. Smallwood remarks that those killings 'cost him plenty' but this remark is not explained unless what's meant was a fatal worsening of Watson's reputation). Fleeting visits excepted, he had been absent from Fort White for at least twelve years, and his mother and sister and the long-established Collins clan were there to shelter him, and he had money. For these reasons, and perhaps others, he was permitted to return.

According to Smallwood, Mr. Watson acquired a ruined farm and brought it back into production, and meanwhile he married a preacher's daughter, whom he later brought to the Ten Thousand Islands. But Mr. Watson was not in Columbia very long before he was in trouble once again.

Herlong says that Watson's best friends were Mike and Samuel Tolen; that the ill wife of the latter was close to Watson's new wife and was commonly said to have willed her a lot of silver and a piano; and that when Mrs. Tolen died, her husband refused to comply with her will. Not long thereafter, both Sam Tolen and his horse were shot to death on a lonely road. (According to some accounts, his brother was also slain, though Herlong makes no mention of Mike Tolen's death.)

Watson, arrested, was in such imminent danger of a 'necktie party' that the sheriff had to move him out, to Duval County. According to Herlong, Watson's lawyers obtained a change of venue to Madison County, where the aforementioned Jim Cole, an associate of Watson's son-in-law with powerful friends in Tallahassee, helped pick the jury. As for the state, it mustered just one witness-a black man-against Mister Watson, who was shortly acquitted. Captain Cole (so Herlong says) was heard to tell him, 'Now you get back to the Ten Thousand Islands as fast as you can! And stay there!'

Apparently Dr. Herlong lived his whole life in north Florida after following the Watsons south from Edgefield County, and the substance of his account of Edgar Watson's life in Columbia seems as objective and dependable as Ted Smallwood's reminiscence of the later years. But finally he succumbs to the Watson legend, asserting that Watson 'inherited his savage nature from his father…' and concluding his account in the best dime- novel manner 'No one can say definitely what happened to change him from a decent young man, son of a good mother, to a heartless killer. I don't suppose it will ever be known how many human beings he murdered.'

Even were all his victims known-I am increasingly convinced of this-the number would not be revised upward, as Dr. Herlong implies, but sharply down. Also, I question whether or not he was a 'heartless killer,' a designation that suggests a psychopath. Let me repeat here that Mr. Watson had admirable domestic virtues, almost never associated with the 'heartless killer,' far less with what is termed these days the 'serial killer,' who seems unable to sustain human relationships. A dangerous brawler, yes, especially when drunk, a hair- trigger temper, a seeming paranoia when threatened with exposure, and a lifelong banishment to one frontier after another in a period when making one's own law was the custom in backcountry America-and even, one might well observe, a philosophical foundation of the national policy that condoned high-handed seizure of the Spanish colonies and other territories in the Caribbean and the Pacific. While not everyone behaved as Mr. Watson did, this headlong frontier climate must surely have contributed to actions that seemed to him justified by the brutal hardships of his life.

CARRIE LANGFORD

CHRISTMAS, 1908. When Walter and Eddie and Captain Cole came back from Papa's trial in Madison County, Jim Cole was the only one who seemed to celebrate.

Innocent? he'd wink. O' course! We got him acquitted, didn't we? And he'd guffaw even louder if I frowned, and try to nudge me. He thinks I'm charmed by him, isn't it astonishing? To be so thick-skinned and stuck on yourself, I mean? That old piney-woods rooter, Mama called him-oh, Mama, I miss you so!

Papa will return to southwest Florida for good, so Eddie says. I don't know how I feel about this, either. This evening I asked John Roach in front of Walter if there was any way of finding a position for Papa at Deep Lake. And Walter burst out, Absolutely not! (Just as John Roach was saying tactfully, Well, your dad has a good business head, no doubt about it!)

Walter never speaks to me so sharply, I got quite upset. It's not as if my father were a criminal, I cried. He was acquitted! Even the Madison newspaper spoke well of him!

All the same, Walter said, in that low, stubborn voice that warns me he is digging in his heels-all the same, he said again, if Jim Cole had not arranged some things, it might have been a very different story.

Was he guilty, then? I asked him later. Is that what you are trying to say in front of Yankee strangers?

John Roach is not a stranger, Walter said, offering to take me in his arms. (I will not tolerate this when he has been drinking.) Didn't we name our little boy for him? he said.

The very mention of our poor dead little John drained all my spirit. I wept, and went to Walter, and he patted my shoulder, the brisk domestic pat-pat-pat that has no warmth in it, and precious little patience.

I don't claim to know about your daddy's guilt or innocence, he said into my hair. All I know is, you are cold with Captain Jim, considering what he done for your daddy.

Did, I said, picking the wrong moment to correct him. Walter gave me one of his flat looks and let me go. Did, he said.

DECEMBER 30, 1908. For the first time in our married life, I cannot sway Walter. (If it were anything else, I might be glad!) He says, I had to lie for him, perjure myself. We all did. That don't mean he's welcome in my house. Though he doesn't say it in so many words, Walter believes Papa is a killer and always has been, he wants nothing more to do with him. And though I flew at Walter and said dreadful things, he would not relent. He went off to the bank feeling miserable, too.

Papa showed up on Tuesday with Edna and her two little ones. Fay and Beuna yelled Grandpapa! and rushed toward the front door but never reached it. I made them cry by sending them upstairs with their Uncle Eddie.

Eddie is living here until his lodgings at Taff Langford's boardinghouse are ready, and meanwhile Frank Tippins has found him a deputy clerk's job at the courthouse. Eddie testified for the defense at Madison, he told them how one Tolen man tried to ambush Papa at Fort White. But now he imitates Jim Cole's curled lip and Walter's words, says perjury was about as far as he aimed to go. He did not even come out to greet his papa, and Lucius wasn't home. Not knowing his daddy would arrive, he'd gone off bird hunting.

Through the curtains I watched my father at the door. He gave it a good rap, he had his chest out, but the rest of 'em hung back, out in the street. It was very plain their money was all gone because they brought no help at all, only a somber Negro man in dirty overalls. In a cart behind them from the railroad station was the sad heap of their worldly goods, down to boxes and bedsteads, reminding me of those poor 'Sooners' we children felt so sorry for back in the Territory.

It looked like this time he was headed south for good.

Papa was unshaven and pasty-white from jail, and his Edna looked hollow-eyed, drained of her color, and the tear-streaked children were too worn out to whine. It's so hard to think of these forlorn small creatures as my brother and sister! Goodness! They are younger than their nieces! And they smelled like poor people!

I sent the servant to the door while I composed myself. She asked if she should show them in. I shook my head. Just bring some milk, I whispered, and a plate of cookies.

I went to the door after a moment, and we faced each other. There seemed to be some sort of mist between us. I was trying not to look at something wild and scary in my papa's gaze, something that horrifies me. Or was it only my imagination, after all this rumor? Oh, Papa, I said, taking his hands, I'm so relieved about that awful trial!

My voice sounded false and faraway. He saw right through me. Though he smiled, there was no spark in his eyes, he looked burned to ash. He just nodded, just a little, waiting to see if I would ask them in. Just wanted to wish you folks a Happy New Year, Papa said. And because he was trying to sound cheerful, I had to fight back