I returned to the bedside. I could have said I feared Wally Tucker’s brother, who had sworn vengeance in Key West saloons, or one of the Bass clan from Kissimmee, or that dirty bounty-hunting Brewer who came here with the Frenchman years ago. But of course it was none of these I feared and I had no idea who I was waiting for. I only knew that one day he would come—the Man from the North, as I had always thought of him. Since Chatham River was so far away in the wild south, in a brackish labyrinth of swamp and muddy river at the farthest end of the American frontier, the one I awaited could scarcely come from any other direction. Anyway, it was no known man with a name.
To Laura this would make no sense so I said, “Jack Watson, maybe.” I wanted to end this conversation since Kate, come to relieve my vigil, was in the door. “Long-lost brother,” I added, when they looked confused. I said good night and went away.
At daybreak, weeping, Kate brought Laura’s dead child, wrapped in fresh muslin. The young parents, shattered, thought he was a miscarriage, too early and too small for Christian rites, it seems Laura wanted me to handle it. I took the child from Kate and went outside. Upriver, I dug a little grave and kneeled and laid the bundle in and buried it, haunted by an image of that unborn babe at Lost Man’s Key gasping for life in its mother’s corpse under the current. Still kneeling, I exhumed the bundle, took it up. Lightly brushing off the dirt, I held it a few minutes before finding the resolve to part the muslin and confront the small blind shrunken face. Was this what Bet Tucker’s unborn had looked like? Still on my knees, I lifted him toward daybreak in the eastern sky over the Glades, then bent and kissed the tiny cold blue brow, greeting and parting.
ADDISON TILGHMAN WATSON
In the winter of 1907, suddenly, Billy Collins died and our guests had to leave. To Kate’s relief—she feared the thought of Chatham Bend without her Laura—we returned to Fort White with them and stayed on for the spring planting.
Laura dreaded moving in with Julian’s family and who could blame her? Granny Ellen was sharp-tongued as ever, and as for my sister, she had shut herself away even before her husband’s death, drifting deeper and deeper into shadow realms, leaving her younger children to Aunt Cindy’s care. Offered a roof at my house, even that tight-wound nephew of mine appeared relieved. Dear Laura hugged me with fond gratitude. “Please try to forgive those awful things I said at Chatham, Uncle Edgar. Please watch out for that Jack Watson,” she whispered. “Oh yes,” I said. “My shadow brother.” I tried to laugh at such a strange idea.
Kate Edna was near term with our second child. Knowing her Laura would be left behind, she missed Fort White even before the time came to leave for Chatham. More and more withdrawn, she barely put up with my attentions, devoting herself entirely to Ruth Ellen. Sometimes we did not touch each other for a fortnight.
When Addison Tilghman Watson came into the world, Mama assumed that the name commemorated Great-Uncle Tillman Watson at Clouds Creek; I did not disabuse her, being unable to explain the need to dedicate this fresh new bit of life to Cousin Selden.
Kate entreated me to let her stay a few months longer at Fort White, and so I returned to Chatham River by myself. In November, I met Kate and her babies at Fort Myers, where we spent Thanksgiving with the Langfords: Walter and his railroad friend, Mr. John Roach, Carrie had written, were still discussing my participation at Deep Lake. At supper, Jim Cole regaled the company with his story about a case in which one black man killed another in cold blood in front of four eyewitnesses. The young defense lawyer assigned by the court worked hard for his first client but it was hopeless, an open-and-shut case. To his astonishment, the judge ignored the jury verdict, set his client free. Congratulated by the prosecutor, he protested, “Are you people crazy? It was coldblooded murder! My client was guilty as all hell!” And the prosecutor took him by the arm and said, “Well, now, Lee Roy, this bein your first case and all, we didn’t want our home boy to come up a loser. Anyways, it was only some ol’ nigger, ain’t that right?”
Jim Cole told a story well and everybody laughed except for Kate, who just looked baffled. Embarrassed by her unworldly ways, I got somewhat drunk and spoiled the evening, picking stupid arguments. When no mention was made of Deep Lake, I grew furious, humiliated, having stooped to getting ourselves invited to this house for the sake of nailing down that job. Cole and Langford would make my crude behavior their excuse to put aside any talk of my participation but the real reason was more gossip and ugly rumors. I could only suppose that one source was my son Eddie in Fort White, who was always the first one with the news, bad news especially.
Carrie and Kate were still awkward with each other, very stiff. My daughter had invited us to stay on for their family Christmas, but Kate said she felt unwelcome at the Langfords. Once at Chatham, however, she could not stop crying at the prospect of a lonely Christmas far from home. “I hate this endless river, these green walls!” she wept. “I hate that awful crocodile! I hate this place!” The girl had to be near hysteria to berate her husband in that disrespectful way.
All Kate wanted for Christmas was my promise to kill that log-like brute across the river (I tried but it was wary)—either that or take her “home” for a few months after the late winter harvest. Since I wished to go north anyway for the spring planting, I agreed. Kate was delighted, all the more so because her dear Laura would still be living in our house.
When the time came, I had misgivings. Young Wilson Alderman, whom I’d sent to Fort White to help Eddie on the farm, had returned to Chokoloskee to spend Christmas with his family. The Tolens had been defaming me while I was gone, he said, especially the shifty James, who had moved in with Sam at Aunt Tabitha’s house to help keep an eye on the Myers nephews, who were still challenging her will. Alderman warned me that the situation might be dangerous. I told Kate nothing about this, of course. We returned to Fort White in April 1908.
CHAPTER 7
CODE OF THE FRONTIER
In recent months, the fat widower Sam Tolen had taken bit and bridle off his drinking. He let his fields go, let his livestock run wild through the woods, and vilified all who passed before his eyes. Up there in that big empty house with its bad smells of rat droppings and rotted food, old hogs snuffled down the hall and half-wild chickens squawked and fluttered through the windows, and the Lord of the Manor was in his liquor morning, noon, and night. The summer previous his Tolen Team had told Sam they would quit for good the next time he showed up drunk on his own baseball diamond; his players never could agree on whether their manager behaved worse when they won or when they lost.
These days Sam’s way of keeping in touch with his sharecroppers and neighbors was to accuse them of rustling his cattle. With eight hundred head or more roaming the woods, he never bothered to brand his calves, just ordered his tenants to pen up any strays and let the cows in at dusk to give them suckle. Being poor, Sam’s croppers tried hard to oblige him, but he bullied them anyway, hollering a lot of stupid stuff about hanging rustlers from the nearest tree. Preacher Bethea and Josiah Burdett had both been threatened, also our well digger William Kinard, who was not even his tenant. There were days when Sam’s only activity was to ride around on his big red horse and shout abuse, knowing that young Brother Mike would back him up.
Mike Tolen, now a county commissioner who worked hard to get along with everybody, did his best to pretend that his brother was harmless; he’d even wink at the victim of abuse over Sam’s shoulder. Mike had tasted Sam’s bile, too, but as a Tolen, he backed him no matter what, and any croppers who stood up to Sam were run right off the land.
One day, Sam rode over to the Junction to revile my friend Will Cox, just reined in his big red horse and bawled across the yard, hollering for all to hear how he’d never liked the looks of this horse-haired bastard. Will was a lanky handsome man with a hank of black hair like a horse’s mane across his forehead, always calm, clean-shaven, and polite, but his wife Cornelia was a wilder breed. This day she came out and stood beside her man, arms fol
ded high up on her chest, black eyes like chisels as she glared at this fat and filthy Tolen. Years before, when Jim Tolen got her simple sister in a family way, she notified her big mean brothers in Ocala County. When they came hunting him, Shifty Jim slunk back to Georgia. Now he was back.
Hearing Sam abuse his pa, Leslie came out onto the stoop hoisting Will’s rifle. Leslie said, “My daddy ain’t no bastard, mister. Git off that horse and down on your damn knees, tell him you’re sorry.”
Will told him, “Boy, you just cut out that damn cussin.” He grabbed the gun barrel, turned it away, saying, “Mr. Tolen, you best git on down that road.” Sam wheeled that bay horse and headed back until he was out of range, then reined up, shouting threats. He hated being run off by a boy, especially this boy on his own baseball team. Folks heard about it and they laughed, and from that day, Sam was spoiling for a showdown.
Will Cox was proud of Leslie but uneasy about Sam, knowing this would not be forgotten. Next year we’ll have to find another lease, he told me.
Sam Tolen wasn’t waiting till next year. A few days later, he came along on his red horse and caught Leslie at the railroad crossing at the Junction. Les was talking to his cousin Oscar Sanford, they were setting on the pile of cross-ties that Old Man Calvin Banks cut for the railroad company. Sam was so drunk he could hardly ride, but he wasn’t so drunk he didn’t notice that the Cox boy was unarmed. Oscar Sanford went scrambling down behind the pile, shouting at Les to jump, but Les did not even stand up, just spat his chaw in Sam’s general direction and otherwise ignored him. Sam was trying to haul his shooting iron from the saddle scabbard, hollering how this ingrate kid had pulled a gun on him at Coxes so he aimed to exterminate him here and now in a fair fight. Probably thought Les would grovel for his life like any normal feller. He would not. Just lay back on the cross-ties with a long grass stem in his mouth, hands behind his head, to watch the show. Sam was too drunk to aim and hit the woods but not so drunk he would murder him in front of witnesses, Les figured.
Mike Tolen was nearby in the commissary of the turpentine company, where the first order of business was to cheat black workers and recoup every last cent of the payroll by foul means. Hearing the yelling, Mike came out and ran over to Sam’s horse, where his brother was blood red in the face trying to free his gun from under his own leg. Not caring about base-ball, Mike never excused Leslie Cox the way others did. He thought Les was a mean bully and conceited and he wasn’t wrong. Nevertheless, he talked Sam down, reminding him that there might be talk if he was to go and execute his own star pitcher. Finally Les stood up in no hurry and jumped down off the pile. He turned his back upon Sam Tolen and walked away, leaving Sam shouting. Borrowing Oscar Sanford’s mule, he rode across the woodlots to my barn, told me the story, asked what he should do.
I liked Les well enough, I guess, because he was Will’s boy and stuck up for his daddy. Not only that, he held a high opinion of a certain individual in the community at a time when most folks gossiped that this man was the killer of John Hayes and John Russ both. Therefore I sat him down like my own son, put my hand on his shoulder, and looked him in the eye, warning him he must not trust my advice because I was so prejudiced against Sam Tolen. I meant that, too, I was trying to be honest. “But I’ll tell you this much, son,” said I. “That fat feller is scared of you so he just might shoot you when you are not looking, call that self-defense.”
“So I better shoot him first. That what you’re tryin to tell me, Mister Ed?”
“No such thing. I’m pointing out the facts. A man has to face the facts, make his own decisions.”
Leslie nodded. “Better shoot a man who’s threatenin your life before he can shoot you. That’s only natural, ain’t it, Mister Ed? That’s only justice.”
“Every man has his own idea of justice, son. Every man does what he has to do.”
Leslie’s brow was furrowed up from trying to work out what I might have meant in the hope of discovering approval of a murder. When he pestered me again about the Belle Starr case out there in Injun Country, I mentioned how the victim’s son Ed Reed had been hidden along the road at the same place his mother died. “Saw fit to shoot, I reckon.”
Les wanted to know if I’d broken the frontier code by “naming my confederate” this way. First, we were not confederates, I retorted, and second, this so-called confederate was gunned down dead back in ’97, so nothing I could do besides dig him up would disturb my confederate one little bit. Les nodded wisely. As for the frontier code, I snapped, the only frontier code I was ever to observe was dog eat dog and Devil take the hindmost.
My sour rejoinder wiped his frontier squint right off his face. I was merely tired of this boy and tired of this word game we were playing, but a person would have thought from his expression that I’d said there was no Jesus Christ nor even Jesse James. “I may have hinted that I witnessed the killing of Belle Starr,” I said. “I never told you I took part. I do know this: Belle never saw it coming. That is a life lesson that will stand you in good stead: you don’t play games with varmints, you exterminate ’em.”
A pretty good case can even be made in praise of ambush. Men who never took a life and don’t know what they’re talking about may call it backshooting or cowardice but the dead man, who rarely sees who struck him down or suffers pain or terror, has a dignified death that few of us will ever get, in bed or out. Compared with mayhem of the common kind, bushwhacking is clean and it is efficient, which is why it is so often chosen by professionals. The bushwhacker, too—assuming he’s not criminal or warped but just an ordinary feller trying to get by—will thank his Maker that he never had to face the rage and terror in that last doomed stare. Several killers I met in prison said the same: if it has to be done, do it quick and merciful, which means by surprise. It’s a lot harder to shoot straight when that wild-eyed feller sees you and a lot more hazardous.
However, I did not explain this, not wishing him to get the wrong idea. Reminding him that he must take into account my own prejudices in this matter, I spoke more generally and philosophically, endorsing the old Border principles of defending one’s rights by dealing forcefully with insult or injustice, threat or humiliation, no matter the cost or consequence to life or limb—the right to defend one’s honor by main force when force seemed appropriate and by cunning where force would not prevail, since there was no honor in defeat, however gallant, and no dishonor in avenging that defeat, however cruelly. No matter what moralists might preach, bending one’s neck in defeat was the sole dishonor. Lying, craftiness, so-called betrayal—all these became acceptable and even praiseworthy when they were the sole means to defend the honor of family or clan.
These noble lessons, faithfully learned at the knee of Ring-Eye Lige, were lost on Leslie—or rather, this was too much thought for him to handle all at once. He cleared his head by closing one nostril with his fingertip and blowing its contents out the other, then got straight to the point. “Tuesday mornings on his way to Ichetucknee, he goes right past that fence jamb down yonder by our cabin, know the one? All thick with brambles just like where you was tellin me about in Belle’s case.” He watched my expression. “You reckon that’s too close to home?”
I sighed with awe. “That’s just what’s so ingenious, Les. Nobody would ever imagine that any man would be so idiotic as to settle a famous feud by setting up the ambush in his own front yard.” To ease his suspicion, I added quickly, “That’s why the judge had to conclude that I was innocent in the Belle Starr case: Hell no, Ed Watson never done it! We know Ed! He just ain’t dumb enough to shoot her so damned close to his own house. Might be stupid hicks but we ain’t so stupid we don’t know he knows we know he ain’t so stupid as all that!”
At Leslie’s stare, I had to laugh. However, not wishing to appear facetious, I wiped that mirth off my own face and frowned in respect for the serious nature of the situation. “Mind you,” I continued, “Sam Tolen is not what you’d call popular and nobody is going to miss him. And even if Mi
ke accuses you, your daddy is good friends with Sheriff Purvis, so . . .”
“So . . . ? You are advisin me . . . ?”
I lifted both palms and withdrew from the discussion. “Son, don’t put words into my mouth. I’m not advising you. I’m only saying that a man must do what in his heart of hearts he knows is right.” Some way these words seemed to contradict the wisdom imparted earlier but Les was too intent on his own plan to make such nice distinctions.
“Well, what I mean—well heck, now, Mister Ed, what would you do? In your heart of hearts is what I’m talkin about.”
“Depends. But if I thought an enemy—naming no names—was out there gunning for me, I reckon I could find it in my heart of hearts to put a stop to him.”
Leslie fell quiet. Uncertain, still dissatisfied, he flicked his jackknife at a pinecone on the ground. What he was really asking was, Would Mister Ed back him up? In my belief, he had already made up his mind to kill Sam Tolen. “I’m kind of new at this,” he said, uneasy. Even his ball cap was askew, sticking out to one side over his ear. In that moment, for the last time in his life, Leslie Cox looked like a boy.
THE BIG RED HORSE
I took Reese with me. Black Frank was his own man except when he was my man; in the end he would do what I told him. Not that he was glad to be there. He had no use for Sam Tolen—there wasn’t a black man for miles around who did—he only protested that the Cox kid’s quarrel “ain’t none of my nigger business, never will be.” He refused to commit murder for another man. Of course not, I told him, this was Leslie’s business. All Frank had to do was shoot the horse.
Frank was aching to retort, What about you? What’s in this for you? This was not wise so he burst out angrily, “Why shoot that horse? That’s a good horse. I wish I’d of had that big red horse when we was ridin out of Arkansas.”