Shadow Country (35 page)

“Course Hardens had nothing against mixed blood, so when Henry started courtin Liza, nobody objected 'ceptin Earl, although Liza was coffee and Henry the pale color of new wheat.”

“Henry has a lot more white than most of those po' whites who call him ‘Nigger,' ” Sarah said.

“I guess Henry never talked enough to suit my sister. As the only colored in a cracker community, he never had much practice. Liza complained that Henry
never
talked, never gave her more than the bare facts even when he talked about the weather. Our Liza dearly loved a conversation, and she couldn't bear that. So pretty soon that girl run off with a white man who told her he had money which he didn't.”

Sarah said, “Liza announced her marriage to Henry was annulled because it was performed outside the Church and therefore didn't count in the Pope's eyes, but she never could remember who annulled it. Being strong-minded like her mother, she most likely annulled it herself.

“Our ma admired Henry Short, no matter what,” he reflected after a while. “She never had much use for her daughter after she run off with that cracker, who had a bad habit of pickin up anything loose he could lay his hands on, my sister included. Liza bein Henry's consolation for a lonely life, he never got over it. Followed our family to Flamingo, fished around Cape Sable, but when he returned to Lost Man's River, who should he find living there but Liza and her man; they were not real friendly but made him drink with them to let bygones be bygones. That was Henry's first liquor and he couldn't handle it, and that night he was heard to mutter how somebody might take and shoot that thievin redneck. We knew he was just easin his torment but that kind of wild talk could of got him killed.”

“Even before Liza took up with Henry,” Sarah said, “some of them Bay women called her ‘white trash,' not because she done wrong but only because their menfolk—every man along that coast—would have sold his soul for what Henry had and those ladies knew it. So they were happy thinking she'd humiliated her family by marrying ‘Nigger Short' and overjoyed when she run out on him: it did their hearts good to see God Almighty humble that mulatta who dared to marry that supposed-to-be-white woman after raising up his gun to a white man.”

“Ma said Henry was a high type of man who had a low opinion of himself. White people had robbed him of his chance for a home and family and now they had took his self-respect as well. But I believe that losing Liza might have saved his life. The young fellers let off steam crackin mean jokes and shootin off their mouths instead of gettin drunk and comin after him. Because when there's too much lynch talk in the air, it's bound to happen.”

One day Owen Harden said, “Henry's at the Bend.”

To avoid scaring Henry Short back into the scrub, Lucius slipped up Chatham River on a night tide and was at the dock at daybreak. Calling out softly to calm the dogs and announce his presence, he walked unarmed toward the house.

Bill House, already outside in the porch shadows, stood in his nightshirt like a ghost. Perhaps to warn Henry, he sang out, “That a Watson? You lookin for me?”

“Looking for Henry. Heard you might know where to find him.”

“We ain't seen him. What you want with him? Next time—oh Christamighty!”

To House's annoyance, Short had appeared at the corner of the boat shed. When Lucius said good morning, Henry lifted his hat politely but did not come forward. Instead he retreated behind the shed, possibly to escape the cool breeze off the river but more likely, Lucius guessed, to make sure they were out of earshot from the porch. Was this precaution for his visitor's sake or for his own?

“We heard some man been huntin him,” House said. “That you?”

“Nosir,” Lucius said, “it's not.”

Short awaited him, standing not stiffly but very straight, as if to accept any punishment his hard life had in store including its own immediate relinquishment. His ancient Winchester, leaned against the shed, had been left or placed well out of his reach, though Short must have heard the
Warrior
coming upriver and could have kept the weapon handy if he'd wished. If I were to put a revolver to his head, Lucius supposed, this man might flinch but he would remain silent, less out of fortitude than a profound fatalism and possibly relief that all his trials, Lord, would soon be over.

Henry bent to brush raccoon scat off a fish box, providing his visitor a seat. He was a strong, good-looking man with blue-gray eyes, composed and very clear in his appearance. Like most men in the Islands, he went barefoot, but unlike most, he kept himself clean-shaven and his blue denims were well patched and clean.

Lucius opened the conversation with civilities, then rather abruptly came right out with it, keeping his voice low. He'd heard rumors, he said, keeping his voice amiable, that Henry Short was present at the Watson killing.

Yessir, Henry agreed after a pause. He had gone down to Smallwood's landing on that day. Why? Because Ol' Mis Ida House, she told him go keep an eye on Ol' Mist' Dan. And he had taken his rifle along? He was told to bring it. And why should he be believed?

Near expressionless, Henry raised his gaze and looked his inquisitor straight in the eye. “I don' know that, suh.”

“You were only following orders, Henry. I believe that. But some say you took part. They say they saw you raise your rifle.”

“Nosuh, nosuh!” Shaking his head over and over, Henry retreated into negritude. “White folks roun' de Bay was allus good to me, Mist' Lucius. Must of mistaked dereselfs, dass it. Dey was all lookin at Mist' Watson, see what he might do. Nobody nevuh paid no min' to no darn nigguh.”

Lucius groaned in frustration. As a man who had lived his whole life among whites, Short usually spoke like one; he must have known that his visitor would not be taken in by this performance. Lucius sensed carefully controlled anger. What Short was really saying was,
Is a minstrel show what I must offer before you will let me be?

“Some even say you fired.” He tried to startle him, pointing at the rifle. “Is that the weapon you pointed at my father, Henry? Yes or no?”

Henry met his glare, less defiant than stoic, resolute. Slowly he shook his head. “No cullud wouldn'
nevuh
raise no gun to Mist' Edguh Watson!” Then he said strangely, “Mist' Edguh knowed dat.”

Lucius searched his face for sign of ambiguity. Short's expression was impassive. For one more moment, they held that gaze before the colored man deferred to him and looked away.

The previous evening, at his camp under the moon at Mormon Key, his purpose had seemed clear, but standing here in the bright sun of morning, he was no longer quite sure why he had come. Now that he had finally caught up with Henry Short, his whole inquiry seemed unreasonable, ridiculous—what could this man tell him? And how could he act on anything he confessed, since even if Short had raised his rifle to a white man, that reckless act would not have changed the outcome in the smallest way. A confession would signify nothing.

At a loss, he muttered, “So the rumors are untrue?”

The nod was a mere twitch, as if Henry were bone tired of telling an old truth that would never be believed—tired of running, tired of hiding, tired of lifelong loneliness and fear. His apathy seemed to signal that the white men could believe whatever suited them and their black man would go along out of his helpless resignation.

“Thank you. I'm sorry if I troubled you.”

“Your daddy always treated me real good, Mist' Lucius,” Henry said, not to ingratiate himself but to ease the absurd situation in which his visitor had put them; he had reverted to his normal voice. And Lucius told him, “You have nothing to fear, Henry. Not from me.” And Henry nodded, understanding very well what had passed unspoken. He murmured softly, “Okay then, Mist' Lucius.”

Henry, like a polite host, followed him out from behind the shelter of the shed. Lucius had always known that he and Henry Short were natural allies, as the Hardens had suggested to them both from the beginning, and saying good-bye, he had an impulse to offer his hand; under House's sharp eye, he could not bring himself to do that. The gesture would be seen as weakness and might compromise Henry, too. But in years to come, when their boat courses happened to cross, the white man would respond in kind when the brown one touched his hat. Rarely, one or the other made a vague half wave and once, nearly colliding on a narrow bend, both men smiled, though they looked away quickly and kept going. As outcasts befriended by the outcast Harden family, their condition might have disposed them to a common trust, yet they shared an instinct not to seek the other out. In mute respect, they felt no need to speak. And though neither thought of it in terms of “friendship,” a silent bond was what it had become.

As the visitor walked past the porch, Bill House said, “Well, that was quick.” Lucius raised his hand without stopping and the little boy at House's elbow waved back shyly. “How's that ol' list comin?” House called after him. “I sure hope you got my name spelled right.” When Watson did not turn but kept on going, he yelled angrily, “Don't slip up on us so quiet next time, hear?”

Lucius Watson's visit to the Bend served only to fire up a rumor that Watson might be gunning for Nigger Short.

THE LIST

One by one, from varied sources—cryptic gossip and sly woman talk, drunk blurtings—Lucius learned the names of every armed man present in that October dusk at Smallwood's landing and in most cases the extent of his participation. New information gave him reason to eliminate a name or add another or simply refine the annotations that kept his list scrupulous and up-to-date. With its revisions and deletions, comments and qualifications, ever more intricate and complex, the thing took on a whole different significance, as what had begun as a kind of morbid game evolved into a kind of obsession.

Eventually the folded packet of lined yellow paper, damp from the salt air and humid climate, had gone so transparent at the creases from sweat and coffee spills and cooking grease and fish oil, so specked by rust, so flecked with bread crumbs and tobacco, that his neat small script all but disappeared and the list had to be replaced. The painstaking writing-out of a fresh copy was no chore; on the contrary, he welcomed it as a ceremony of renewal and a source of inspiration. As vital research for the suspended biography that might redeem his father's name, the creation of the list somehow justified his return to the Islands; at the very least, it helped compensate for a wasted decade of inaction. So long as it continued to evolve, he saw no reason to give it up; so long as critical details were missing, so long as minor corrections might be made, it would never be finished. Not until much later would he face the fact that he had dreaded finishing the list because he questioned his ability to act on it, although he had known almost from the start that this was so. Any capacity he might have had for taking human life had ended in those days of mud and carnage on the Western Front.

And so, once again, he was overtaken by the dread that he had failed his father in some way, that he had betrayed the hickory breed of old-time Carolina Watsons who, according to Papa, would have risen in the very teeth of Christian morality and consequences to avenge their Celtic blood. His own vague alternative was confrontation—a succinct damnation (as he imagined it) uttered while staring deep into the eyes of each listed man, a stare long enough and cold enough to dispel the smallest doubt that Watson's son knew the precise degree of his involvement. Each man would have to deal with the enigma of what this son might do in retribution; each man's suspense and fear would be his punishment.

Though Lucius kept his list concealed, the time would come when he was shunned on Chokoloskee Bay. Toward the end of his first year in the Islands, rough warnings changed to threats. One twilight up in Lost Man's River he heard the echo of a rifle shot that followed a bullet's hornet whine across his bow. A stupid joke? Harassment? Something else? Glimpsing a skiff 's worn blue paint through the mangrove branches on the point, he had suspected Crockett Daniels, known as Speck, a poacher and moonshiner who as a youth had been present in the dusk at Chokoloskee and was already a suspect on his list.

Lucius received word of Walter Langford's death too late to reach Fort Myers for the funeral. When he turned up next day at his sister's house, Carrie assured him she had understood his absence but it was plain she could not quite forgive him. “Nobody seriously expected you,” Eddie said sourly. With customary spite, he informed his younger brother that the president of the First National Bank had died of drink and liver failure, having neglected to provide properly for their sister.

Nell Dyer was present. They greeted and chatted painfully, hurried apart.

While Lucius was absent in Fort Myers, the
Warrior
was rammed and sunk at Everglade, where she had been tied up at the fish dock. Though shaken, he would not retreat, dreading the lurking danger less than what he saw as a crippled life of cowardice or weakness. The Storter trading post had been enlarged as a new lodge for sportsmen, and Hoad had moved to Naples; it was the Hardens—the last friends he could trust—who finally prevailed on him to leave the Islands; he headed south around Cape Sable to fish out of Flamingo until things cooled down.

Returning to Lost Man's some months later, Lucius learned that in his absence, a stranger had come looking for him in a rented skiff, having rowed south twenty miles from Everglade. “Feller with straight black hair and a thin beard, spoke short and crusty,” Owen said. “Knew what he was doin in a boat and seemed to know this coast. Got too much sun and his hands was raw, all blistered up, but he was tough, never complained. I said, ‘You off a ship someplace?' and he said, ‘No, I rowed from Everglade.' I reckon that was far enough for a man whose hands ain't callused up from pullin oars. ‘What can we do for ye?' I said. From the start, we thought he looked some way familiar.