Lucius found a cloth to wipe his brow. “Don’t exhaust yourself. No need to talk.” Out of his agony, Short summoned the will to glare. “If they ain’t no need to talk, how come you settin here? They is a need!” Henry rasped this with asperity, in fits and starts. “My time comin. I needs to finish. Same as you.” He closed his eyes and kept them shut as if reading testimony etched in acid on the inside surfaces of his eyelids. “Got a cryin need.” When he emitted a sharp cough of pain, the churchwomen drew closer, fearful that his visitor might drain the Deacon’s strength.
“These folks love you, Henry.”
“Yessuh,” the burned man snapped, impatient. “All God’s chillun lovin dere poor ol’ Deacon.” He was struggling to indicate an old book on a little shelf above his head. When Lucius said he’d be happy to take his word, Short closed his eyes and shook his head. Lucius took the Bible from the shelf and slid it beneath the mitt of bandages on his right hand.
A HUMAN MAN
“Mist’ Lucius, I was deathly scared of Mist’ Watson but I never felt no hate. Because he seen me. Seen me as a man, I mean, a somebody with my own look to me and my own way of workin, not just any-old-nigger with no face but only just his two hands for his work. Field niggers, house niggers, make no difference: they all scared niggers. Your daddy scared ’em, too, got rough with ’em, but all the same, he listened like they was people. He was a very uncommon white man in that way, very uncommon. I felt beholden all them years I knew him.”
And had he “seen” E. J. Watson in return? Lucius wondered. The great waste?
“Course treatin coloreds with respect don’t mean he gone to tol’rate no gun-totin nigger standin amongst white men come to judge him. And that’s what he seen that evenin, comin ashore.” When Lucius looked puzzled, Short said sharply, “What I told you! Nigger actin to be a man! A human man,” he added quietly. He lay still to accumulate strength again before continuing.
“Follerin after ’em that evenin, I was so heavy in my heart I couldn’t hardly get a breath. I was dead scared of Mist’ Watson and dead scared of them scared men passin the jug around. All I could see there on that shore was the mob that killed my soldier daddy back in Georgia.
“Mist’ Edgar didn’t hardly look at me, just warned in a scrapy voice, ‘You get on home.’ But knowin this black rascal could shoot, he took no chances. Easy-like, still talking, he hefted up that double-barrel like he was fixin to hand it over to Old Mist’ Dan, way he was told, but by the little shiftin of his feet I seen he was gettin set to swing that gun from the hip, blow that fool nigger off the end of that line of men to show ’em he meant business—show ’em that if he was to let go his other barrel, next one to fall would be a white man and more likely two.”
For a moment, distracted by his pain, Henry lost his thought. He had confused himself. He frowned. His dry mouth twitched. After Lucius fed him water in thin sips, he shifted minutely and tried again.
“I was still prayin I would not have to shoot but when his gun come up in a snap swing, mine come up with it. I seen his eyes go wide out of his surprise. Happened so fast,” he lamented. “That noise crackin my head as if earth exploded. Mist’ Watson’s face gone redder’n red, looked like a busted tomato.
“Somebody shot Mist’ Edgar Watson!—that was the first thought come into my head, seein him fallin. All I could think was, Henry Sho’t, these men gone lynch you here today. And right about then my hands told me I had raised that rifle.” He gazed bleakly at Lucius. “The feel of ’em. Told me I fired.” Henry spoke as if sorry that E. J. Watson had not killed him.
“You figured he might shoot you so you fired first—”
The wrapped mitts jerked on the coarse coverlet. “Tha’s what some said later. ‘The nigger panicked!’ ” Henry shook his head. “Weren’t no time to panic. No time for nothing. I just done it.” His brow was clenched in a deep frown. In its concave shadow, his temple pulsed.
“Bill House?”
“Mist’ Bill shot right behind me. All them Houses was good shots, prob’ly hit Mist’ Edguh befo’ he hit the ground, but he was fallin by the time they fired.”
“You know you shot first and you know you didn’t miss.” Lucius paused. “Your bullet killed him.”
The dying man set his bound hand square on the Bible. “Help me God,” he said.
Lucius sat back. That old rumor was true, then, inconceivable and true. In the worst days of Jim Crow, a black man had killed Papa.
As if in terror of his own confession, Short frowned as hard as his scabbed face would permit. A blackish blood spot rose into the corner of his eye. When Lucius put a wet rag to his lips, Henry whispered, “Hell is waitin on me, Mist’ Lucius. After all my prayin.”
“You had no choice. And my father would have died in the next seconds anyway.” He said, “Henry, I’m sorry. You must think I’ve been hunting you all my life.”
“Ain’t Henry you been huntin, Mist’ Lucius.” He closed his eyes and, as if practicing, he lay as still as the corpse of Henry Short. “No mo’ secrets, Mist’ Lucius,” he whispered. “No mo’ lyin.”
Saying good-bye, Lucius recalled Jane Straughter’s message, entrusted to him at Fort White the week before. Hearing it, Henry showed no response—too late, his stillness seemed to say. Lucius leaned forward to repeat it softly: Please tell Mr. Short that Miss Jane Straughter was asking after him. Tell him Miss Jane said to please come visit one day soon. Henry’s eyes flew wide. “Miss Jane.” Tears glimmered. “Soon,” he whispered.
Bill House and the Grahams rushed to Henry’s cot when his heart faltered and hard spasms yanked his body. When he fell back, he lay as if transfixed, mouth stretched in a famished yawn. Then, in a twitch, as the room moaned, his heart restored blood to the grayed skin, and the mouth eased, and the glaring eyes, returned from darker realms, softened and dampened.
House lingered at the bedside as if awaiting the burned man’s permission to depart with a clear conscience; he seemed unwilling to accept that Henry Short was dying. (In a note from the Grahams a fortnight later, Lucius would learn that Henry never spoke again but sank away and died a few days later.)
HEENIOUS MURDER
On the way south, House said, “You get the truth from Henry you was after, Colonel?”
“Yes, I think so. Which is more than I ever got from you, Bill. You always gave me the impression you shot first.”
“Me or Dan Junior, one. Dan always claimed it.” Bill House grinned. “I ain’t generally a liar, Colonel. But my dad made us promise never to admit that Henry fired.
“See, no two guns sounds just alike, not to a man that has hunted many years with both of ’em. That man was Mr. D. D. House, and that first whipcrack shot came from his old Winchester that he passed along to his colored boy one year when he was too broke to pay him.
“Daddy he never let on what he had heard till he was on his deathbed, 1917. Summoned his three sons that was down there at the landing, made us swear that what he was about to say would never leave that room. Even then, he was extra careful. He did not tell us in so many words that Henry fired, only informed us that he heard the crack of his old Winnie if he weren’t mistaken—said that part twice. But he did add kind of ironical that if Henry fired, he must of been aimin at a bat or something. What he meant: from fifty feet, let alone fifteen, Henry Short were not a man well-knowed to miss.
“Course bein a nigra back when lynchin nigras didn’t hardly make the papers, Henry would never admit he pulled his trigger, not even to me, who was raised up with him and standin right beside him when he done it. Not one man in the crowd that evenin would of raised his hand to stop him: they was very glad to have that nigra’s rifle in the line, because him just bein there was bound to distract Watson and might keep some of ’em from gettin shot. Trouble was, they never let on to their sons how scared they was—so scared they forgot the color of a man because he could outshoot the man who scared ’em. And bein ashamed, they never talked about it or discussed it in the
family.
“So it weren’t the fathers but the sons who got hard with Henry. Hated to think that a black man might of took care of Watson and their scared daddies only finished off the job. That’s why some of ’em went to hollerin about Nigger Henry, Nigger Short; ‘Who in hell give that nigger the idea he could get away with that?’ Pretty soon they was sayin that maybe Short’s bad attitude come from the way them Houses spoiled him. Next, some liar spread a story, ‘That dang nigger bragged on killin a white man’—say that real sweet and soft, you know, which is the sign amongst that coward kind that some poor nigra is headed for perdition. Pretty soon they was tellin how the whole thing was Henry’s doin. ‘Why hell, that nigger lost his head, the way they do! Committed heenious murder! We gone to stand for some hare-brain nigger shootin down a white man in cold blood? We just gone to stand here chawin about it? Ain’t we men enough to go learn that boy his lesson?’ But Henry Short had our House clan behind him, seven men and boys, so nobody would lay a hand on him that weren’t lookin for more feud than they might have wanted. And their daddies kind of nodded along and shrugged and kept their mouths shut. It never come to much and finally died down, because most of them boys was not so much bad fellers as big talkers, and on top of that, in them first years, they couldn’t find him.
“Anyways, I believe today that Henry and me fired shots so close that every man but Daddy House heard just the one, and I don’t believe no other shots was ever needed. In them days, I passed for a expert with a rifle, some would say I was right up there with your daddy, but from all our years huntin together, I knew our colored man was better and shot faster. So when Daddy said he heard two shots, I was scared at first it was Henry’s bullet killed Ed Watson. Well, it weren’t. He never aimed at him, y’see. I did.”
Lucius said flatly, “Henry killed him, Bill. Killed him first, anyway.”
“He tell you that?” House raised his eyebrows. “Well, if Henry told you, Colonel, that is good enough for me.” House stared out the window, digesting his mixed feelings. “In the back of my mind, maybe I knew the truth of it. That hole smack in the forehead—that bullet weren’t mine. I aimed for the heart and I don’t believe I missed. Only thing, he was still on his feet when I fired. Already dead, I reckon.”
“To all intents and purposes,” Lucius said shortly.
“Henry went home quick because right away them ones that was drinkin wanted to know who brung along that nigger. Course they knew it was Houses and we spoke right up but that didn’t stop ’em, nosir, they was huntin trouble.
“Henry didn’t need no warnin. By the time we got home, he already had his gear in his old skiff. Pap had left before the crowd started to turn ugly so he said, ‘Them men ain’t goin to bother you none, Henry. Heck, they like you.’ And Henry said, ‘ ’Spect so, Mist’ Dan. They liked Mist’ Watson, too.’ He left that night.”
A few minutes later, Bill spoke up again. He could not put the burned man out of his mind. “Whilst you was over talkin with his brothers, Colonel, Henry told me he was through with life but life weren’t through with him. I just hated to see him so bad hurt that he would say somethin like that.” He looked stricken. “And knowin no words I could say to help when he was dyin, that made me ashamed.
“After all the years that good man give us, after we promised Daddy House we would protect him, how come we never kept track of him? Let him know he weren’t forgotten by our family; tell him we was wonderin how he might be gettin on? I never done that, nosir, I did not. Too much pains to take over a nigra—was that my thinkin?
“Funny, ain’t it? My cousin-in-law over to Marco, the one helped lynch that colored feller some years back cause they give him a white man’s job in the clam cannery? That cousin never missed a meal till the mornin he never come down to eat his breakfast. Died peaceful in his sleep at home after a nice long life. How do you figure that one, Colonel? You reckon God just thundered down, ‘All is forgiven, Boy, cause you ain’t nothin but a redneck idjit that never knowed no better. It’s them ones like your cousin Bill that knowed better and turned away that I am abominatin in My sight.’ ” Bill shook his head. “I never did commit a crime against a black man and darn glad of it but I never done nothin for ’em neither, not even when I had the chance. You reckon that’s why I feel so bad about Henry? Because I knew better?”
House lifted his hand to shield his eyes from the westering sun that fired the windshield.
“Kind of late to help him now. I missed my chance. Sins of omission, they will call it where I’m headed for.”
From here and there across the prospect of Golden Years Estates came the grind and bang of earth-moving machinery. At Panther Crescent, finding Bill’s wife away at church, they sat outside sorting the day’s events.
Bill said, “So Lucius Watson finally learned Henry Short’s story and made friends with the House clan, too—that mean you’re through with it?”
“Know something, Bill? I might be. But first I have to get to Hell and hear my father’s side of it.”
“Lordamighty.” Bill House laughed. “Where you off to, Colonel, this late in the day? Which ain’t none of my darned business,” he added hastily when Lucius remained silent. “What I mean, don’t wait around here just to keep me company. You got a long drive home.” Lucius assured him he’d be happy to wait until Bill’s wife came back in case Bill needed a hand with all those panthers.
Hearing a car coming, they got to their feet. Bill House waved with a broad smile of welcome as his wife climbed out with a food basket on her arm. For how many long years, Lucius Watson thought, had there been nowhere he was expected, no dear friend to greet him with warm supper? All that awaited him was that stranded barge on a remote salt creek; he felt invaded by a dread of home.
“He’s back safe, Mrs. House!” he called. “I never got a chance to bump him off!” But he had hailed her with a gaiety he did not feel, and Bill House turned to look at him. “Listen,” Bill said. “Better stay and eat some supper with us, Colonel. Talk about old schooldays with Miss Betty here.”
“Thank you, I have to go,” he said, lest they think he’d been awaiting an invitation. Awkward, he thrust out his hand and House, still puzzled, shook it warmly. “So long, Colonel. Hope we ain’t seen the last of you,” he added, as Betty House said shyly, “Lucius? I sure am happy to meet up with you again. Will you come see us?”
When his car started up, the Houses waved. “You ain’t such a bad feller, Colonel,” Bill called after him. “Maybe you never was.”
By the time he reached Caxambas, there would be a moon. His mind turned and returned to that brass urn. Was that what he’d been dreading? That waiting presence, gathering moon glints in the window? The thing spooked him—not those brown bones but the spirit sealed in with them. He had no wish to be alone with Papa in defenseless sleep.
Making his way along the woods road to the old sheds by the creek, he took pains with the potholes. He shut the car door carefully when he got out and made his way out to the barge over the spindly walkway. Down the still creek, a raccoon fishing mud clams at the tide edge sat up to peer around and watch him pass.
Noisy on purpose to warn away the ghosts, he wrenched open the salt-swollen door. Framed in the window, in silhouette against the mirror of the creek, the urn awaited him. Stopped short on the threshold by unnamable emotions, he was startled when his own voice said, “Papa? I’m home.”
In a tumult of unsorted memories and premonitions, he crossed to the window and with both hands lifted the urn, touching it to his forehead to break its spell. “May God forgive you, Papa”—how inappropriate this was, since, like his father, he had lost faith in any deity. What should he do with this damned thing?
He lay down wide-eyed on the moon-swept cot, clasping his hands on his gut to quell his restlessness. In the morning he fetched Rob’s envelope from the car, made coffee, sat out on the deck.
NIGHT RIVERS
Luke:
I am writing down as best I can reme
mber the events of New Year’s morning, 1901, so you will better understand why I ran away. It takes all the courage I have left to let you read this. I’m taking you at your word that it’s the truth you’re after.
You and Eddie were still in school, living with Carrie and Walter in Fort Myers, when Wally Tucker fled Key West with his pregnant sweetheart to escape bad debts and scandal, having heard that Mr. Watson at Chatham River would employ them. Some months later, your father’s hogs sniffed out two shallow graves beyond the cane fields. Wandering out there calling in the hogs, the Tuckers discovered the remains of two young cane cutters. These men had told Wally that they wished to quit but were owed more than a year’s back wages and could not get “Mr. Ed” to pay attention.
The Tuckers fled the Bend without their pay. I found them rushing their stuff down to their little sloop, almost hysterical. He murdered Ted and Zachariah! “That’s impossible,” I said. “He paid those boys last month and took them to Fort Myers. I saw them off myself.” Well, we did, too, but it’s Ted and Zachariah all the same! Though they didn’t dare say so to his son, they were terrified of what might happen if the Boss found out what they knew. When I got angry, asking Tucker if he was accusing Mr. Watson, he did not back down. Who else? he said. He was in tears.
I ran out through the cane fields to that place and I smelled those bodies long before I got there. The ground was hog-chopped all around. I went in close enough to look and had to get away on that same breath to keep from puking. The bodies were all bloated up, half-eaten, but there was no question it was Ted and Zachariah.
By the time I got back, the Tuckers were gone. Papa lay like a dead man in the house. He was drinking very heavily that year. According to Aunt Josie, who came flying out to warn me to stay away from him, Wally put his Bet aboard their sloop, then took his gun and walked up to the house and pounded on the wall to wake the Boss, demanding the wages they had coming. Your father was furious because two workers were quitting without notice with the cane harvest hardly begun; he was further incensed when he threatened to strike Wally and Wally raised his gun. “You point a gun at E. J. Watson, you conch bastard, you better damn well shoot him. Go on! Shoot!” That drunken bellow terrified Aunt Josie because it sounded so insane, but as usual, E. J. Watson knew his man. Wally Tucker was no killer, never would be. Moving to strike him, Papa reeled and stumbled and fell down and the Tuckers fled.