Then the boat rolled and Mister Watson got away from us, slid off the gunwale, flopped into the mud. Now that was the real horror, and it made me mad. I hollered out, To hell with it, let's get this done with! I was in outrage and did not know why, but there ain't no doubt I was too rough, and some would bring that up against me long years later as a way to show how Houses had it in for E.J. Watson. I grabbed some line, bound up his arms and run a hitch around his ankles, yanked it up hard like he was some kind of dead gator, then run a bridle off the stern cleats of his boat. Then I cranked his engine and dragged the body off that shore like some old log. That rolled him back over on his belly, and he come along backwards and face down, and the kids darting right into the shallows, kicking and flailing him. I seen Jimmy Thompson, Raleigh Wiggins, Billy Brown, one-two others. It might been Raleigh who was wearing Watson's hat.
'Get away!' My own voice sounded cracked, half kind of crazy. Where in hell were their parents, who claimed to be Watson's friends? How come they let their kids behave like bad-trained dogs? Night before, not one of them so-called friends of his had tried to warn him, wave him off, nor even advise him to put down his gun. Were they that scared to go up against their neighbors? I don't think so, not them Lost Man's fellers. They was always pretty ornery, went their own way.
My opinion, even his friends knew that his time had come, and his reckless behavior makes one wonder if Ed knew it too, though there ain't a soul I know of who agrees with me. Smallwood knew, too, for all his protest. But I will say this for Ted, he didn't watch it. The rest stood in a line there by the store and watched us kill him.
On the way to Rabbit Key, the body caught up on an orster bar, got tore up worse. Them little feet come twisting up out of the water as he rolled. The grisly head was thumping on the bottom, I could feel the thrumming when I took in on the bridle-damn! It turned my guts. Finally we got him in the channel, and he towed all right the whole rest of the way. But that was a very long slow trip, cause a boat motor in them days had more pop than power, and that dead weight down there dragged like a sea anchor. By the time we got to Rabbit Key, the clothes was tore off him and what was left of his face, too. Didn't hardly look like a man, he looked like something from the ocean deep thrown up by storm. He was scraped so raw you could not say what kind of sea monster this might of been.
Same rope was used to haul the body from the shallows to the pit, trussed like a chicken. Them men were still so fevered that they buried him face down. 'Give that bloody devil a good look at Hell' is what one said. They dragged two slabs of coral rock right in on top of him, one across the upper legs and the other across the back, to make sure this thing-cause a thing is all he was, with legs and arms bound tight and no damn face on him-make sure this thing would not rise at dusk and come hunting the ones that turned against him. Before throwing the sand back in on top, one of them brave fellers who boasted how he'd emptied his gun into the body-I won't mention his name, him being kin-he rigged a noose around the neck, hitched it up tight, then run the bitter end across to that big old twisty mangrove that stood alone out on the point, the only tree left standing by the storm.
These same brave fellers was the most confused about the killing of their neighbor E.J. Watson, cause he never fit their notion of a bad man-shifty-looking, dirty, don't you know, pocked skin and scars, maybe an ear gone, or one eye. Watson didn't look that way at all. Oh yes, you'd hear 'em talk about 'them crazy Watson eyes,' and it was true, those soft blue eyes could set real hard, they kind of fixed you. Mostly they was a mild pale blue, as Nettie said, that went good with his ruddy skin and chestnut hair. He was strong and handsome and his clothes was clean, altogether a fine-looking man. Maybe they hated him and feared him, the way they say today, but they esteemed him, too.
His boldness, facing 'em down that way, disturbed 'em bad, but that temper got the better of him, that was the end of him. And now he was all shot to pieces, it was real pathetic. He wasn't 'Mister Watson' anymore, and they could take out on this meat lump with no face the anger and despising he had made so hard for 'em while he was still alive-while he was still 'made in God's image,' like the rest of us.
Wouldn't be surprised it was me started it, the rough way I dragged him off the landing, but I didn't want no part of mutilation. I was relieved that he was dead, but I missed him, too. I run into many a man in life was a lot less likable than E.J. Watson, I'll tell you that much.
Over by the shore, ol' Tant was telling how Mister Watson treated him so good all them long years. When we seen them fellers lead that rope out of the grave, Tant only shrugged, he just stayed out of it, but I went back over to see what was what, and got too hot about it. I told that feller to take that noose off his damn neck right now cause he were as dead as the law allows already.
Man said, Well, ol' Bill thinks hanging is too good for this fine feller, that right, Bill? And another said, Now, Bill, don't you go getting lathered, we just rigged a rope so's them cattle kings can find him, case they send down for the body.
Around the neck? I said.
But them others backed the first one, cause they was feeling ugly, they was spoiling for a fight, same way I was. I was so disgusted I just washed my hands of it.
That's how that story started up about crackers who shot Watson to pieces, then hung his neck to a lone tree and piled on coral slabs so big that it took a couple chain-gang niggers to lift them off when his Fort Myers kin sent down for Mister Watson a few days later.
Sheriff Tippins was down from Marco with the Monroe County law when we got back to Smallwood's, long about noon. Bill Collier brought these lawmen on the
The men told the law how nobody killed Watson, they fired all at the same time in self-defense. 'Did he fire at you first?' says Tippins, and the men scratched their heads and looked around to see if anybody could remember. Isaac Yeomans didn't care much for that question. 'Nosir,' he growled.
'He tried,' I said.
Tippins looked me over, that's his habit. Then he mimicked me, kind of ironical, you know-
Right from the start, Frank Tippins seemed as tangled up about this death as we was, couldn't set still for a minute, he was fuming. Only difference was, he had somebody to take it out on. 'Your name's House,' he said, like the name had me incriminated right from the start. 'You was the ringleader, they tell me.'
'We didn't have no ringleader. No leader, neither.'
He looks me over again, so does his Monroe sidekick, who's got a cowboy hat on too.
'How come you're so fired up? You ashamed of something?'
'Nosir, I ain't. I ain't got a thing to be ashamed about.'
Tippins was trying to make us mad so we'd bust out with something. Mister Watson's death was homicide, he said, and 'those responsible' had to go to Fort Myers for a hearing, and any man who did not come of his own free will would go in handcuffs.
Charley Johnson asked the postmaster to come along to testify to our God-fearing characters, Ted being the closest thing we had to a upstanding citizen. Bill Collier said he'd be glad to take Mrs. Watson and her family at no extra charge.
After Watson's death, Ted Smallwood had to hold his wife in Chokoloskee. Mamie was scared and she was horrified, she didn't want to live in such a place no more, she wanted to leave the Ten Thousand Islands for good. She knew Ed Watson for what he was and never said no different, but she hated the way them men licked his boots, then turned and shot him down, is the way she said it. My sister took it hard.
Them men weren't bootlickers, not by no means. We were just ordinary peaceful fellers, never knew how to handle this wild hombre till we had him laying face down in the dirt. If ever a man brought it on himself, it was Ed Watson, but somehow we was getting blamed for doing what the ones who blamed us wanted.
I never cosied up to Ed like some, and I never had no regrets, that day or later. We done what we had to do, and I stand by it. But I will admit I am still ashamed of how the crowd kept shooting after he was dead, as if trying to wipe the memory of him off of their conscience. Some of them men shot and shot until their guns was empty, wasn't one live shell that left that place that day. There was a young boy run in afterwards, shot his.22 into the body. His older brother was standing right there with us and never stopped him.
The boys agreed we would leave Henry Short out of it, we didn't want to cause Henry no trouble, because word had come down from Deep Lake that around Frank Tippins, things went hard with niggers. Never did find out what happened to Watson's colored man who come to Pavilion Key and was handed over to the sheriff at Fort Myers. Can't recall his name if they ever give him one. They say he was sent to Key West, but there ain't many as believes he ever got to go to his own trial.
