got hisself elected president.
Soon as the man was out of sight, they started in about how they would have grabbed him but for this and that. Very sheepish and disgruntled bunch of men, my daddy told me, like he himself wasn't never nowhere near it. Already they was muttering about how sick they was of fooling with Ed Watson, and how they aimed to take care of that there outlaw the very next time he made him a false move.
Pretty quick some started saying, Maybe Watson went down there to help Cox make his getaway. When two days went by and he never come back, the story spread that he'd carried Cox around to the Key West railroad, which laid rail down the east coast that year as far south as Long Key. And that was fine, so long as Watson dusted out at the same time. Nobody said that right out loud, only the women, but that's what everybody hoped, that's how fearful Chokoloskee was of both them outlaws. It wasn't justice they was after but a good night's sleep.
MAMIE SMALLWOOD
Grandma House declared how meet and fit that Mister Watson should vanish in great storm, like the demon she herself had always said he was. And we thought we seen the last of him when he went north the day before the hurricane, cause he surely had his chance there to go free. But Mister Watson wasn't done with us, not by a long shot. Came back through from Fort Myers on the twenty-first, brought his launch across from Everglade, saw to his family. He was so red-eyed with hard travel, day and night, that he laid down on our counter while he talked, keeping a sharp eye on the door. He told us Sheriff Tippins got as far as Marco, then turned tail and headed back up to Fort Myers, awaiting reinforcements from Monroe County. The sheriff would not deputize Mister Watson, so Mister Watson deputized himself. He was on his way to Chatham Bend to 'apprehend that scoundrel' while the apprehending was good.
Mister Watson had stopped off at the store to pick up some shells for that old double-barrel, but shells was paper-wrapped in them days, and all we had was swollened storm-swept shells. I said, These ain't the shells you want when you go
The House family was back on Chokoloskee, also Lovie Lopez and her boys, and Tant Jenkins, Henry Smith, from Pavilion Key. A lot of folks from Lost Man's straggled in after the hurricane-Thompsons, James Hamiltons, young Andrew Wiggins. None of them families ever went back south, the storm left 'em nothing to go back to.
Daddy House and Charley Johnson, a few others, came down to where our landing used to be. They had a plan to arrest Ed Watson, though they never let on about that plan till he was gone. Mister Watson had his double-barrel out where they could see it, he had come too far to tolerate no interference, and nobody wanted to stand in his way, cause he looked half-crazy with exhaustion. His eyes were dull and teeth gone yellow, and that lively chestnut hair of his all dank and dead.
He said, 'I will be back,' as if to challenge anyone might try to stop him, and Daddy House, who had some dander, said, 'If you are aiming to come back, you better bring Cox with you.' Mister Watson said, 'Is that a warning, Mr. House?' And D.D. House said, 'You could take it that way, Mister Watson.'
Mister Watson didn't like that, not one bit. He said, 'Dead or alive?' and D.D. House said, 'Dead is good enough.'
Mister Watson pushed off in his boat. He said, 'If I don't bring him, I will bring his head,' and cranked the motor.
He went away without a word, pot-pot-potting down the Bay toward Rabbit Key Pass. For the second time that week we told each other that if that feller had one bit of sense, we'd seen the last of him. But Mister Watson, as Ted said, never did learn where to draw the line, he weren't that kind. Maybe we were finished with him, but he weren't finished with us, not with his family here.
Mister Watson weren't hardly out of sight when his poor wife felt a shift toward her on our island. Folks closed her off, wouldn't look her in the eye. They walked around her, moved out of her way. It got so bad she wouldn't let her kids out of her sight, for fear that one of 'em might come up missing.
The silence that followed that poor body all around our ruined island weren't nothing but pure fear and hate- fear of her husband and his murdering henchman, and hate toward this fool north-county girl who must of known what kind of bloody man fathered her children-that's what the women muttered-and more fear yet because her being in our midst with his fire-headed little demons might be enough to draw that devil back. And the people who was coldest of them all, she told me later, was the ones invited her into the house where she was staying.
BILL HOUSE
Our house was just east of Smallwood's store. We were still patching up after the storm when we heard that
Pap and me and Dan and Lloyd picked up our rifles and went on down to Smallwood's landing, Henry Short a little piece behind. Long ago Pap give Henry his old gun, but I was surprised that he brought it along. Nobody told him he should come, and nobody told him he should go away. Never said a word to nobody, just set himself off in the trees. I never did learn what was in his head, we never talked about it even once, but Henry Short were not a careless man. He knew his place and always did, and I guess he figured his place was there with us.
My father-in-law, Jim Howell, and Andrew Wiggins, who married Jim's daughter Addie-they were with us. Close to twenty, give or take a few, was in the crowd, most all the men on Chokoloskee Island. Some carried guns so's they wouldn't be thought less of by their neighbors, but even the few present who meant business were dead scared. The sheriff hadn't showed up, so our idea was, we would try to arrest him by ourselves, hope for the best. Others, I ain't saying who, was declaring for the past three days that if Watson showed up again before the sheriff did, they was for shooting him straight off, no questions asked, that's how bad they wanted the suspense over and done with. Better to finish him once and for all, they said, cause with all his son-in-law's powerful friends, and nothing against him but a nigger's word, he was certain to wriggle loose again same way he done so many times before.
Them fellers claimed to be worried sick about miscarriage of justice. But I believe they was worried a lot more that ol' Ed Watson, left alive, would come settle up his business quick with anyone he thought had turned against him. That was a feller kept his accounts straight, like Ted said. Eye for an eye, that were Watson's motto, if he had one.
Pap said, 'He won't murder twenty men.' And that bunch never would of bushwhacked him, not with D.D. House dead set against it, and his three sons, too. But later on, the story was put out how the House clan wanted that man killed no matter what, because Emperor Watson with his 150-gallon boilers, all his up-to-date equipment, was aiming to take over our cane syrup business at House Hammock, drive us out.
Ted Smallwood came out from beneath his house but would not join the posse. Said this trouble hadn't one damn thing to do with him. Said Ed Watson was his best customer, all paid up and fair and square, and he had nothing against Watson, never did. Said he had nothing against us other fellers, neither. Said anyway he was down with his malaria, though I noticed he felt strong enough to crawl in under his house after them drowned leghorns.
Ted said too damn much altogether. The more he talked, the harder it was to tell what the heck he wanted.
Later people got the idea, mostly from Mamie, that her husband was the only one kept out of it. He wasn't. Some came unarmed because they passed for Watson's friends, and that includes the men from Lost Man's River, but they came anyway, and never said a word. I believe they were as anxious as the rest to see this finished.
The hurricane had took away Ted's dock, so Old Man Watson run the
