Killing Mister Watson

One thing I ain't never going to forget. After all that noise, there come this echoing silence, like the Lord was about to send down word from Heaven. There was only the fool chant of a scared bird. Then we heard Edna Watson's high clear voice, Oh my God, they are killing Mister Watson! By that time, of course, he was in Hell already.

Mamie stood guard where Watson's little family had sunk down before the store all in a heap. My sister wore a look of last perdition, bored right through me. I knew from my Nettie that our Island ladies had shunned Edna Watson for some days, and I seen at once that the poor woman was plain terrified that this night crowd of armed men that had tasted blood might put to death the victim's wife and little children. I hate to say it, but knowing how feverish some of 'em got, she had good reason.

The ones who was most dangerous in that crowd was the same ones as had looked the other way for years and years, same ones who said Ed Watson never killed a soul down there cept maybe a nigger or two that had it coming. These very same fellers was the ones that eased their nerves by pumping every last bullet that they had into his carcass, the very same ones was so angry he had scared 'em that they had to scare Mrs. Watson just as bad, scare her so bad that she grabbed her kids and crawled under the store on hands and knees before Mamie could stop her. They was the ones liked to dirty joke about how lucky Old Man Watson was to mount this firm young filly, and jeered and hooted at the fine sight of her hips in her nice petticoats when her store-bought dress got hung up on a slat as she crawled down in the filth to get away. If E.J. Watson could of seen how that crowd terrified his poor young wife and children, he'd of stood right up in his life's blood, come straight back from Hell to kill us all.

I felt terrible, and sick. I went to my knees and I called in there to Mrs. Watson, It's all right, ma'am, ain't nothing to be scared of! Poor woman must have thought I was a crazy man, to say something like that with my gun still warm and her husband, too, still warm and bleeding, and boys and dogs running around, gone wild.

Well, I weren't one bit better than the others. No, that young woman had got deep under my skin, though she never knew it, and she stirred my desire then and there, may God forgive me. And here I was just newly wed to Nettie Howell! I was so ashamed that I hollered at the others, shoved them away, like we'd caught some lady in the bushes by mistake.

The swamp angels was something terrible that evening, but that poor little family crouched back in the dark with them putrefied chickens for damned near an hour and never made so much as a whimper, that's how frighted they was. They lay there just as still as newborn rabbits. Mamie done her best to soothe 'em, murmuring down through the storm-raised boards in the house floor, same sweet way as a young girl she talked a scairdy cat out of a tree. When finally she got the poor things calmed, and coaxed 'em out of there, them Watsons stunk so bad of rotten chickens that the people where they was staying wouldn't take 'em back. Said they wasn't fit to set foot in a decent house with that stench of Hell on 'em, and here it was dark, and three scared hungry little kids whimpering for their daddy and no place to turn to, and their mama's poor mind starting to unravel, what with all her terror.

The stink of that pathetical little family was only the excuse for what them people was aiming to do anyway. They didn't want to be anywheres near no Watsons, not with Leslie Cox still on the loose. Man sent his wife out to tell Edna Watson they couldn't put up with 'em no more. Never even let 'em in, they pushed their stuff at 'em through the cracked door.

The ones that drove that desperate family from their house, the husband was supposed to been a friend to Watson, and the wives was close-well, this man and his brother, who was visiting from Marco, they was in that crowd. He was one of 'em claimed later on he never pulled the trigger, which means he was along with us for the wrong reason. Don't matter if he pulled the trigger or he didn't.

I don't need to name no names. The men who scared Watson's little family and those folks who drove 'em out, they know who they are right to this day.

So Mamie took Edna and her children into that tore-up house of hers, and that family never did forget her kindness. Mamie had redneck ideas when it come to certain people, but she had grit and a big heart, no doubt about it. Lots of Chokoloskee folks are the same way-you hate some of that stubborn ignorance, that prejudice against everyone except their own, but you got to admire 'em all the same. They are good, tough, honest, and God-fearing people, got a lot of fiber to 'em. They have 'em a hard life, and they don't complain.

The lawmen went down to Watson's on the Falcon, picked up Mister Watson's horse and four thousand gallons of his syrup to be taken up and sold off at Fort Myers. Four thousand gallons! By Jesus, if I had sweated out the hot hard hours that man must of worked that hot hard ground, raking the shell off forty acres every year to grow good cane, I'd be heartbroke to leave it all behind. All the point of his whole life was in that cane patch he had made with his bare hands in the meanest kind of snake-crawling scrub jungle.

Oh, that was a fine plantation, I can see it yet, the boathouse, sheds, that dock, that strong white house! Chatham Bend was what he had to show at the end of his hard road. He was not a youthful man no more, he was sick of running, and maybe that is when his life caught up with him.

After a while, some of them folks that had took a liking to Ed Watson and didn't feel right about the way he died, they got to saying all the trouble come from rumor and misunderstanding, that the killings down there never started until Cox come, so it must been Cox who give E.J. Watson his bad name. For some years afterward, people was nervous that Cox was still around down in the rivers, cause that was a hombre that would shoot a man just to see him wiggle.

Unless them Injuns got to him first, Mister Watson rescued Cox or killed him. Otherwise he'd be there still, because Chatham Bend is on an island in them rivers and Cox couldn't swim too good, the nigger said, and anyway he was scared of them big gators that follow the overflow down from the Glades after a hurricane, tracking fish and turtle all along the edge of brackish water. There was no one to come by and take Cox off, lest it was Watson, cause that terrible storm just cleaned the Islands out.

Some years after, one of the Daniels boys claimed he seen Cox in Key West. He said Cox spotted him, ducked away quick. We figured Cox might of shipped out on a freighter. That was the first word of him in a long time, and the last one, too.

I never met one person yet who believed Watson killed Cox. To believe that you would have to believe that hombre set there on the Bend day after day, thinking his thoughts, until Mister Watson come back home and blowed his head off. But if you don't believe it, then you have to explain how in hell Cox got away, and where he went to, and where he is living at today.

Anyway, they dug up E.J. Watson, reburied him beside Mrs. Jane Watson in the old Fort Myers cemetery. I keep meaning to get up there, have a look, but I never do. I always heard them older children built a statue to Ed Watson by the cemetery gate, but maybe they didn't. Anyway, he's still up there, I imagine, resting in peace as good as any of 'em.

THE END OF A MOST DEPLORABLE TRAGEDY HAS COME DOWN NEAR CHOKOLOSKEE

FORT MYERS, OCTOBER 30, 1910. On October 23, a week ago, the lawmen investigating the dreadful happenings at Chatham River sailed for Chokoloskee, where they arrived on October 25. By happenstance, a group of citizens of that island was just returning from Rabbit Key, where they said they had buried Mr. E.J. Watson, owner of the plantation where the murders occurred.

Sheriff Tippins was informed that after their meeting on October 19 at Marco, Mr. Watson had stopped over at Chokoloskee to advise Mrs. Watson that he was on his way to Chatham Bend. The people there were in a very high state of agitation, especially about the killing of the woman, Miss Hannah Smith, of Georgia, with whom many in the community had been friendly. Due to his past reputation, it was generally suspected that Mr. Watson must be implicated, but nobody attempted to detain him. However, the men said, Mr. Watson was to produce Leslie Cox dead or alive or accept the consequences, and he thereupon stated that he intended to return with Cox's head.

When Mr. Watson reappeared in Chokoloskee on the evening of October 24, he produced a hat pierced by a bullet hole, said to have been worn by Cox. He claimed he had killed Cox-here was the proof. Declaring that this hat was insufficient, a posse of citizens demanded that he return with them to Chatham Bend and produce the body. He refused, stating that Cox's body had fallen into the river, and that only the hat had surfaced. When this story was challenged, Mr. Watson appeared to become incensed that his neighbors were questioning his word, and one exchange led to another. The witnesses furthermore stated that when ordered to put down his gun, Mr. Watson