Shadow Country (20 page)

OWEN HARDEN

With the wild things scarce and fishin poor, me'n Webster went to digging clams off Pavilion Key. We was glad to find Tant Jenkins there that we hadn't hardly seen since he left Mister Watson, he was stilll lank as a dog and lots of fun. One day Watson showed up, and he hardly got ashore before ol' Tant was riding him. “Lookee here what's come to call! Damn if it ain't that dretful desperader!” Us onlookers was hunting for a place to hide, but Watson was so tickled to see Tant, he just smiled and waved. Seeing that, Tant started showin off. “Well, men, I'm tellin you right here and now that Mr. S. S. Jenkins don't aim to take no shit off this here dretful desperader just on account he's some kind of a
Emp
-erer!”

Mister Watson dearly loved that bony feller, he'd take about anything off Tant where he might of took his knife to someone else. But after the Tuckers, it seemed like Tant's teasing had grew an edge to it, and this day he strutted around cocking his head back like a turkey gobbler, looking Mister Watson up and down. “Nosir, boys, I ain't a-scaird of no damn desperader just on account he's packing so much hardware under that coat he cain't hardly
walk
!”

Mister Watson laughed till he had to wipe his eyes. Tant purely made him feel good, you could see it. Only thing, feeling that edge, he made Tant finish what he started.

Tant seemed to know that if he dared grin, dared let the air out of his own joke, he would lose the game. And this day he went too far, went to bobbin and weavin in and out, fists up like a boxer. His little mustache was just a-bristling. “Step up and take your punishment lest you ain't man enough!” Watson grinned some more but that grin was a trap. He enjoyed letting this mouse run. Tant knew that, too, but couldn't help himself, he bust out laughing, and Watson's grin closed down tighter'n a orster.

Ed Watson fished his watch out, looked it over, as if figuring how many minutes of life this man had left. The men all knew Ed must be foolin, but they couldn't be dead sure so they edged away. Very sudden, Watson barked into Tant's face, “You never heard about that feller who died laughing?” And them words purely terrified ol' Tant, had him strugglin to pull some shape back to his face.

Knowin Ed Watson as he did, Tant guessed quick that the man wanted him to put up some kind of fight, so he come right back as best he dared: he turned to us onlookers and swore in a tight voice that S. S. Jenkins had just seen the light and would never again make fun of this here Emperor, not even if we was to pay him fourteen dollars.

With no money left when he came home and more work to be done than his home crew could handle, Ed Watson took any harvest labor he could find. Chatham Bend already had a reputation for hiring escaped convicts and got a worse one when rumors went around that field hands were disappearing. Course nobody knew who was down there in the first place, but people were hinting that Watson must be killing off his help when the time come to pay 'em. He had killed before, they said, he had that habit.

Us Hardens never put no stock in what folks took to calling “Watson Payday.” But knowing what we knew about the Tuckers, we couldn't quite forget about it either.

The foreman at the Watson place was Dutchy Melville, a Key West hoodlum who got caught looting after the Hurricane of 1909, then burned down a cigar factory on account them Cubans wouldn't pay him not to. Killed a lawman who tried to interfere but escaped the noose due to his youth and winning ways. Escaped from the chain gang, too, while he was at it, and stowed away on the
Gladiator,
it being well-knowed around Key West that Planter Watson weren't particular about his help. Dutchy told his friends, I'll go to Hell before I go back on no chain gang, and I ain't goin neither place without I take a couple lawmen along with me. Probably meant that, too, Florida chain gangs being as close to Hell on earth as a man could get.

Dutchy Melville was a common-sized man, kind of a dirty complexion. Folks knew his people in Key West, good people, too, but if you didn't know how much they hated Spaniards, you might of seen a hair of Spanish in 'em. In one way Dutchy was like Mister Watson, very soft-spoke, nice to meet, and everybody liked him, but some way wild and crazy all the same. Wore big matched revolvers on a holster belt for all to see. One day there on Watson's dock, young Dexter Hamilton from Lost Man's Beach got to hold his gun belts while he did a real front flip, landed on his feet soft as a cat like a regular acrobat out of a circus.

First year Dutchy come, Mister Watson made him foreman, cause those six-guns scared the crew so bad they was glad to work any way the foreman told 'em. Dutchy made fast workers out of slow ones by letting 'em think he had nothing left to lose; if he got the idea to blow their heads off, he might just do that for the target practice. But after him and Mister Watson quarreled over money, Dutchy spoiled a whole year's worth of syrup while Watson was away, took off on some boat and wound up in New York City. From there he wrote his boss a sassy postcard.
Mister Ed, Hope you enjoyed yourself spending up my pay at Tampa Bay.
Watson stood on the porch and read that card he got from Dutchy Melville and just laughed, Erskine Thompson told us. Said, “That young feller knew enough to go a thousand miles away before he wrote me
that
!” Then he swore he would kill him the first chance he got.

Spring of 1910, a stranger come. “John Smith.” Turned out later that his rightful name was Leslie Cox. Some said Cox was Watson's cousin and some said he saved Watson's hide one time up north, and later we learned he was a killer that run off from the chain gang, same as Dutchy. Cox had a voice deep as a alligator and a sly mean mouth, said Isaac Yeomans, who run him down from Chokoloskee to the Bend, but he weren't around here long enough for folks to picture him. Some said his black hair was long like a Injun, some said it was cropped short, looked more like fur. Maybe that was their imagination. I seen him myself a time or two but don't recall what his hair looked like, only that I didn't like his looks.

Tant Jenkins, out hunting in Lost Man's Slough, come downriver in late spring with a young Mikasuki squaw and dropped her at the Bend. Injuns wouldn't work for whites, wouldn't work for nobody, but this girl was a drunk whose people had turned their back on her for laying with Tom Brewer to settle what she owed for Brewer's moonshine; she was huddled on the bank dead sick, and if Tant hadn't of come along, she might of died. Nobody at Chatham Bend spoke enough Injun to tell that girl where she should sleep at; probably figured that redskins mostly curled up on the ground out in the woods. Watson ordered her to help his wife with the chores because Big Hannah had men's work to attend to. Girl never understood a word he said but with Ed Watson, people generally got the drift of what was wanted.

Leslie Cox didn't hold with no cajolery. He took and raped that girl, done that regular and got her with child, is what we heard. And knowing her people would never take her back, knowing she had no place to go, the poor critter got so lonesome and pathetic that she hung herself to death out in the boat shed.

That was a story that never did get out until long after, cause by the time the posse went to Chatham Bend, her body was gone. But I got friendly with them Injuns in later years and they all knowed about it. How they took care of it they would not say.

With Dutchy gone and Green Waller mostly drunk, Mister Watson made Cox his foreman, but in the late summer of 1910, Dutchy popped up again with a friendly word for everybody, told 'em he was real glad to be home. Only thing, he didn't care for the new foreman, flat refused to take his orders, said he aimed to take back his old job. “I'm fixing to run this somber sonofabitch right off the property,” he told his boss with Cox standing right there. Said he made his ma a solemn swear never to consort with common criminals, which was why he had felt honor-bound to run off from the chain gang.

Common criminals and honor-bound, coming from the mouth of this young killer, purely tickled Mister Watson, and him and Dutchy had a good laugh over that. Dutchy was so cocky he actually thought the Boss was smiling on him like a son; that boy thought a heap of “Mister Ed,” thought Mister Ed was sure to let bygones be bygones over that spoiled syrup. Might of been true that Watson liked him but “like” don't always mean forgive, not when it comes to a year's worth of hardearned money.

When a bear rummaging around too close raises up when he gets your scent, you load quick but you load real easy, with no extra motions that could startle him, and you don't ever look him in the eye cause a bear can't handle that and he might charge. Dutchy Melville was not the kind that took precautions, he was only excited to see what the bear might do; he was like a pup barking and jumping around that bad ol' bear, scaring the on-lookers by trying to play, cause the bear don't know the pup is playing and don't care.

Weeks Daniels likes to tell about the day when Melville tagged along with Mister Watson when he went to Pavilion to see his little daughters and while away the afternoon with Josie Jenkins. Hearing Josie's brother holler insults by way of telling his old boss hello, Dutchy figured, well, if that fool Tant can ride him, I can, too. Wanted to show them clam diggers and riffraff that Dutchy Melville had no fear of man nor beast nor E. J. Watson neither. So what he done, he follered his boss and teetered him off the plank walkway across the tide flats, hooting like hell to see him slog ashore. nobody else who seen this laughed because Watson got his good boots ruined by saltwater mud.

Watson never looked back. Waded ashore, kept right on going over to Josie's shack. But Tant seen his face as he passed by, claimed he knowed right then that Dutchy's days was numbered.

TANT JENKINS

That last summer of living in the Islands, the hunting was so poor that me and my cousin Harvey Daniels and my sort-of cousin Crockett tried setting set gill nets on them sea trout flats northwest of Mormon Key. One early morning before light—we was still anchored, half asleep—we was woke by the motor of a boat coming out from Chatham River. Not many motorboats back then so every man knew any boat from a long ways off. Sure enough, Watson's black
Warrior
come sliding into view. The coast was empty, then there she was, clear of the last mangrove clumps, popped up like she come downriver underwater. Thirty-foot long and nine-foot beam, with a trunk cabin forward, canvas curtains aft, and that black hull.

Next thing we knew, she swung off course headed straight in our direction. Never hailed us, only circled us where we lay anchored, with nobody out on deck, no sign of life. Round and round she went, two-three-four times, slow and steady as a shark. All our guns was loaded, set to shoot, that's how spooked we was, though we was fellers who liked Ed most of the time, him being so friendly with our Daniels family. If he wanted us off them fishing grounds, all he had to do was wave us off and we'd go someplace else.

Not knowing what he was fixing to do next, we could only whisper and sit tight and wait for him to recognize us, leave us alone. I'd worked for him right up until that Tucker business and was still friendly with Lucius. Harvey's dad was his old friend Jim Daniels, Aunt Netta's brother and captain of the clam dredge, and Harvey was the engineer on Bill Collier's
Falcon,
which carried the clams north to the factory. On his day off, Harvey worked on other boats as a mechanic: just recently he'd done motor repair for Mister Watson and was owed eighty-five dollars, which could buy you a rebuilt motor back in them days. Two-three Sundays at Pavilion, Harvey had worked on Mister Watson's boat right alongside him. What I always recall, when you seen Ed Watson from behind, them ginger whiskers under that black hat would be sticking out from both sides of his head.

Mister Watson was generally a fair man to do business with, but this day was along toward the end when he was broke from his troubles in north Florida and behind on all his debts and slow from booze. His black boat circled us four times, then come ahead from dead abeam like she aimed to cut our little boat in two. Crockett and me jumped up, waving our guns, but Harvey had more sense, being the oldest; said he had no wish to trade shots with E. J. Watson, especially when we couldn't even see him. Told us to lay them guns down quick, making sure Watson seen us do it, and then get set to dive over the side and swim underwater far as we could, come up for a quick breath and down again, cause we might not make it to the shore if we was full of lead. But at the last second—we was yelling at each other to get set—the black boat sheared off and headed north. Was that all he wanted? Scaring us, I mean?

Speck—that's what Watson called Crockett, I can't rightly recall why—Speck were now close to sixteen and pretty reckless, so being bad spooked was hard for him to handle. He promised Harvey, “If he don't pay you what he owes real quick, we'll slip upriver on a night tide, set in the reeds across from his damn house, and first time he steps outside, I'll pick him off for you.” He meant that, too. Never killed nobody far as I heard but you knew this boy could do that if he had to. It was something you seen in certain fellers: Crockett Daniels was that kind. And he was a boy who could pick up his rifle and nail the small head of a floatin terrapin spang to the water.

Harvey was the other kind, thoughtful and steady—sooner lose his pay than see a man shot dead on his account. Also, he knew that bein so hotheaded, Crockett might not have such a cunning plan as what he thought. Harvey said, “Maybe you ain't doing this to settle up my debt. Maybe you're doing this just to prove that you ain't scared of him.”

Speck got somewhat hot, of course, but he don't really deny it. “One of these damn days,” he swore, “I'll take and fix that sonofabitch to where he don't scare
nobody
no more!”