Lost Man's River: Shadow Country Trilogy

  Man like me never got much education, never needed it. Never knowed no other way than huntin and fishin, usin a boat. We done that all the year around. Then the Big Cypress and the north Glades started dyin, to where they ain’t hardly nothin left to hunt. Don’t see no game from one year to the next! Finally we said to hell with it and went over to huntin in the Park. Got to take what’s left before the gator holes dry up and the last life dies away for want of water.

  Goin to sleep nights, starin straight up at the stars, I pine away for the Glades the way they was. I know in my mind it would all come back if them sonsabitches would just leave this place alone. You take that bad storm last September—that one them lyin bastards claimed done so much damage to the Watson Place! Come in after midnight, hit Florida Bay, lashin along at 150 miles an hour, pulled all the water off them flats, mile after mile, dead dry as far out as the eye could see. When them seas come back, they was fourteen foot above mean high water! Struck Flamingo at daybreak and broke most of the trees, all the way up and down that low flat coast, carried milky marl inland ten miles, all the way to the Nine-Mile Bend! Left long drift lines of dead fish and birds when the tide went out again—miles and miles of dead-lookin gray swamp and not so much as a buzzard in the sky. That country laid there so still and ghosty that any stranger comin through, he’d say, It’s finished. This Glades country is deader’n a dead man’s dick.

  Well, the greenery and the birds, too, is startin to come back, and it ain’t a year yet! Had to learn all over again what our granddaddies been tellin us since Nap Broward started messin with the Glades when we was boys. This big ol’ swamp got nothin in the world to fear from hurricanes, not in the long run. Only thing it got to fear is two-legged idiots screwin with the water, and doin it legal with the help of politician-lawyers. Destroy the whole damn Everglades for profit, then turn around and call a man a criminal who is huntin gators in his own home country, same as his daddy and granddaddy done before him! That seem right to you? You call that justice?

  Them corporations and the lawyers and the politicians on their payroll—the bigger they are, the more the Gov’ment rigs the laws for ’em so they don’t pay taxes! Grab the whole pot for their sel ves! Big Sugar and them others, hell, they’re already so fat they don’t know what to do with all their profits, but even so they will still move in on every square mile of the Glades they can lay their hands on! Same thing everywhere! Call themselves “big businessmen”—fuckin stupid hogs is all they are! Never raise their snouts out of the trough for long enough to see what their hoggishness is doin to our great country!

  Know how they get away with it? They get away with it because they own the government, state government and federal both. Them so-called elected people, they’re just overhead! Now what the hell kind of a democracy is that? All them bought-and-paid-for politicians ever done was sell the people out, then holler about progress and democracy and wave the American flag over their dirty dealins! Get us into their damn wars so they can make more money for the arms industries and oil and chemicals that paid to get these chickenshits elected!

  Them businessmen and their lawyer-politicians who work our federal government like some old whore—them kind are the real criminals in this country! If we go to talkin about betrayin America, them powerful sonsabitches at the top are the worst traitors in the whole history of the U.S.A.! That whole gang deserves to be took out and shot, or at least have their ears cut off so’s the common man could see ’em comin!

  You know who pays for all them profits with their lives? Same ones that always pays—the little fellers! All us pathetical damn fools that don’t know how to do nothin about it! Fools like Crockett Junior Daniels who are dumb enough to sign right up to go and fight their wars for ’em! Go get their heads blowed off or arms blowed off for a tin medal, while these fat boys stay home livin high off of the hog!

  Before Junior went overseas, he’d talk real serious about fightin for freedom and democracy. Frown a little, y’know, squint off into the future like he seen in the movies, let on kind of quiet and modest how he aimed to serve his country. And I said, “No, boy, that ain’t what you are doin, cause this ain’t your country! It’s their damn country, right up to the White House! Them greedy sonsabitches owns it all!”

  Panting for his breath like a thirsty dog, Daniels glared about him, fire-eyed with drink. His weathered face was dark with blood to the point of stroke, and no one spoke as he wound himself down, snarling and muttering. All were astonished by the passion in this man who had never been suspected of unselfish feelings or even the smallest deference to the common good.

  Speck glared into the fire while he wiped his mouth and otherwise composed himself, too unraveled to focus. When he spoke again, his tone was low and bitter, and his green-eyed head hunched down between his shoulders like the head of a swamp panther, sinking all but imperceptibly into the undergrowth. “I’m still fightin ’em and always will.” Speck’s voice was hoarse. “I always stood up to their law—home law, school law, church law, state and federal. I only got the one life, same as you, and I never liked nobody tellin me what I must do with it, specially when ever’thin they’re tellin is plain lies and bullshit.”

  Speck Daniels looked them over, as if daring them to dispute what he had said. When they awaited him, respecting his strong feelings, his dark aggrieved expression gave way to sly amusement. He winked at them conspiratorially, as if all his grief and fury over the ruination of the Everglades and the despoliation of America and even the maiming of his son had been no more than cynical performance.

  Hearing him laugh—more like a bark—the blind man burst out, “Goddammit to hell!” and Harden growled and turned away, disgusted. Lucius watched coldly as the gator poacher, to burlesque things further, attacked his food with loud and sloppy chewing. Peering gleefully from beneath his heavy brows, he ate ferociously, and because he was grinning, pieces of fish protruded and fell from both sides of his mouth. In inspired perversity—to spite his listeners, making their awe of his populist eloquence seem idiotic—the man was mocking them. Yet even his mockery was ambiguous, since plainly he believed what he had said, and was only jeering at it—and at himself, and at them, too—because he saw sincerity, even his own, as foolish weakness.

  Belching, Speck picked his teeth with a fish spine, in no hurry. Tossing the bone away, he spoke again, so softly now that he was almost whispering. “Old feller asts me the other day, says, ‘Speck? Don’t you pine for our old life? Don’t you wish them days was back the way they was?’ And I told him, ‘Yessir, Lee Roy, I sure do.’ Said, ‘If I had my life to do again, I would live it right here where I’m at, live off this land same way I always done, huntin and fishin, and lawbreakin, too.’ I told him, ‘Lee Roy, I ain’t never goin to be drove out! Goin to live off this Glades country till I die! U.S. Gov’ment wants to run me out, they’ll have to come in after me, and they better come in shootin, cause I aim to be.’ ”

  “Runnin guns to the Spanish countries, now that is a good business,” Speck said cheerfully when nobody else spoke. “Course some say it’s a cryin shame to haul that ordnance so far south and come back with a empty hold. Might’s well find you a return cargo, might’s well haul some of that marijuana weed and make you a nice livin. First feller who done that, over to the Keys, the other men looked down on him somethin terrible, but now there’s more of ’em startin up into that trade, so I been thinkin it couldn’t be too bad. And we got us a smuggler’s damn paradise here in the Islands, least for the ones like Whidden here that knows these shaller waters.”

  He eyed Whidden, still picking his teeth. “What you think about you ’n’ me runnin some of them drugs? Want to try it? I’m studyin up a little bit about this dope business, cause ten years from now, there ain’t goin to be a fishin family on this coast that don’t have men in it. Young fellers has to support their families, ain’t that right?” When Whidden said nothing, Speck sucked the last fish bits from his teeth and spat into the fire. He drank fr
om his flask while his eyes searched anew, and this time his gaze came to rest, with shining hard malevolence, on Lucius Watson.

  “I reckon you knowed Colonel from the old days,” Harden said warily, trying to head him off.

  “Knowed him all my life,” Speck said in a voice as hard as gravel. “He is the feller I am here to see.” He nodded. “Still diggin up your poor dead daddy, Lucius? What you want with him?” Speck gnawed off a chaw of bread and masticated with his mouth open, awaiting him.

  “I want the truth, I guess.”

  “You want the truth. Where you aim to find it at?” He pointed his fork at Andy, then Whidden, and finally at his own chest. “He’ll tell you his truth, he’ll tell his, I’ll give you another. Which one you aim to settle for and make your peace with?”

  Daniels switched the fork toward Lucius’s eyes. “Maybe nobody don’t want this truth, ever think of that? Maybe your daddy weren’t so bad the way he was.” Putting his hands behind his head, he lay back on the sand, one leg cocked across the other knee, old sneaker swinging. “What I’m saying, Lucius, you’d be very smart to let sleepin dogs lie—well, now!” Speck sat up again as his daughter approached the fire. He adjusted the small hat with the painted feather as if sartorial precision might tend to sober him a little. “Evenin, Sally! You remember me?”

  Sally said shortly, “Yes, sir, I sure do.”

  Her father had actually heaved himself onto his knees, but seeing her hostile expression, he gave up the struggle to be courtly and sank back down beside the fire. In doing so, he tipped over his flask. Cursing, he brushed sand off its mouth, nodding in Sally’s direction as if his daughter could be depended on to bring him this bad luck. “Baby daughter,” he said. “Ain’t she sweet? Got herself hitched to this young Harden that was borned right here on Lost Man’s Key. At that time, I was settin net around Shark River, so I been acquainted with my son-in-law all his whole life.”

  He contemplated Whidden with a curious mix of indulgence and malevolence. “Us fishermen was always friendly with you Hardens. Went huntin with you, ate at your table, never thought a thing about it. Only time there was hard feelins was one night when you made Nigger Short set down at your table, eat his food with us. Give that boy the wrong idea”—and here he shifted, leaning on one hand to observe Lucius—“cause next thing we knew, he killed this feller’s daddy.”

  Harden said flatly, “It weren’t Short who killed his daddy. Anyway, you wasn’t never at our table. You just heard about it.”

  “And anyway,” Sally Brown added, “Mr. Henry Short was not a ‘nigger.’ ”

  “Mr. Henry Short?” Speck glanced incredulously at Andy House, who was not quite smiling. “Mr. Henry? Weren’t a nigger?” He grinned at each of them, hunting the joke, and finding none, he cackled anyway. “All right by me.” He scratched his ear. “Never too late to learn, I guess! One time Mr. Robert Harden was lettin’ on to Mr. Henry Short how Hardens was Choctaw Injuns at heart—”

  “Speck?”

  “—and Henry says …” Daniels thought better of this. “To hell with it,” he said, setting his painted hat upon his head. “One thing I do know, ol’ Desperader Watson took some killin. Old Man Gene Roberts, now, he was close with Watson, and pretty friendly with the House boys in that crowd that lynched him—”

  “One of those House boys was my daddy,” Andy said. “And they didn’t lynch nobody, and you know that, too, because you was right there with ’em.”

  “Well, now, let’s see.” Speck squinched his nose like a cat straightening its whiskers. “I never had no bones to pick with Nigger Henry—Mr. Henry. I recollect we used to speak about Black Henry, so’s not to confuse him with Henry Smith and Henry Thompson. Used to chuckle because both of them White Henrys had hides that was somewhat darker than Black Henry!” Speck Daniels cackled. “I do know Mr. Henry moved south for a good while after Colonel come skulkin back here to the Islands. He was scared to death of Colonel for some nigger reason. Lived on False Cape Sable and up Northwest Cape, some little lakes way back in there that us old-timers call Henry Short Lakes yet today.

  “That country back over by Whitewater Bay is sparse and lonesome, so he must been afeared someone was after him, likely this same Watson we got settin here this evenin. Mr. Henry fished and hunted, took care of his own needs—very good hunter and tracker, got to give Mr. Black Henry his due. Dug him a sand well for his water—ever try that? Put a barrel in a sand pit with the bottom knocked out and small holes drilled into the sides? Get brackish water?”

  Not interested in their response, Speck lay back again with his hands behind his head, watching the night fill to the brim with stars and wind. “Some used to say Mr. Henry Short was huntin the gold that Ponce de León hid on Northwest Cape. Don’t know why of Ponce would hike way out across them salt flats and clear on over to Henry Short Lakes, do you? Prob’ly said to himself, Now darn it, Ponce, it stands to reason that the Fountain of Youth is right next to them Henry Short Lakes over yonder!”

  Speck Daniels’s chest heaved in waves of drunken mirth which he did not care if the others shared or not. “Ol’ Ponce!” he exploded. “Probably lookin for that fountain cause his pecker weren’t so perky. Let him down too many times when he was out rapin Calusa princesses and such. Likely that’s what Ponce was up to when them redskins come along and put a stop to that greaser sonofabitch once and for all.”

  “Speck? You got your daughter settin here.”

  “That’s why he talks that way,” she said.

  “When Short was livin at the Fountain of Youth, he never come around the Cape far as Flamingo. Went back north when he went anywhere.” Speck winked at Sally. “Mr. Henry Short, we’re talkin about here.”

  “Sadie Harden told me that Henry did not banish himself because he was afraid,” Sally told Lucius. “He needed solitude because he was recovering from a broken heart.”

  “Broken heart?” her father marveled, as if this affliction had been heretofore unheard of among black men. “Mr. Henry Short?”

  Lucius demanded, “What makes you so damn sure that Short killed E. J. Watson?”

  “Common knowledge. Got to be common, if I got it.” Speck laughed some more.

  “It might be common,” Sally said, “but it’s not the truth.”

  “No?” Speck Daniels measured her a long hard moment. “If I was you, Miss, I’d speak more respectful to your own blood daddy.”

  “Your dad witnessed it, Sally,” Andy cautioned her.

  “That never made him tell the truth before.”

  Speck lay back again, ignoring her. “I seen this famous female on a TV show on the Wild West, and they claimed she was killed by a Florida desperader by the name of Watson. Clamanity Jane or some such of a name—called her Clam for short, wouldn’t surprise me.” He winked dirtily at Whidden. “When Mr. Nigger Short killed Mr. Desperader Watson, they found Clam’s name wrote down in Watson’s diary. Seems like there was fifty-five names in there, one for every last soul that he sent howlin to perdition.”

  “It’s Calamity,” Sally informed her father. “Anyway, you’re thinking of Belle Starr.”

  Lucius said, “My sister kept a diary because our father did, and he showed her what his journal looked like. She described it as a rawhide leather book with a small clasp lock and a title burned onto the cover. Footnotes to My Life. I don’t recall seeing that journal, but it seems unlikely that she made that up.”

  Whidden said, “Mister Colonel? My ma seen that same journal once. Leather book with them same words burned on the cover. Said when he was drinkin, your daddy liked to tease. Claimed he’d took a life for each year of his own. And he called them deaths the footnotes to his life.”

  “Fifty-five human beings? Does that make sense to you, goddammit, Whidden? I mean, why would the Hardens remain friendly with a maniac who had killed fifty-five people!” Lucius rose abruptly and went off down the beach in an effort to control an immense frustration. “And that ain’t countin niggers!” Speck
called gleefully.

  Lucius turned around to find Speck grinning at him. “Now let’s don’t tell him that I said so, but this Watson we are lookin at right here this minute ain’t but the shadder of his daddy. Course it’s possible”—Speck held his eye—“that Colonel Watson would do you hurt if you pushed him hard enough. Leastways that’s what he wanted us to think, back when he was makin up his list. But I believe this feller is weakhearted. Just wants to live along, get on with ever’body.” He paused again, then added meanly, “Wants to keep lookin for his Lucius truth and just make goddamn sure he never finds it.”

  Lucius stood transfixed at the edge of firelight. He could not seem to think, far less move away or return into the circle.

  “One time a feller was tellin me how Mr. Watson took his boy to the red-light district in Key West, this was in the last years of Watson’s life. Lucius must been twenty years of age, but this was the first female he ever fooled with, and damn if he don’t get a good dose of the clap the first time out! Now I heard plenty said about Lucius Watson, but nobody never said he was a lucky feller.”

  Sally muttered something and her father turned on her. “Excuse me, Miss? You sayin, Miss, that Mister Colonel is not a man that would catch a dose of gonorrhea? Well, I might not know so much as you about gonorrhea, Miss, but he sure had the clap. What them Navy boys down to Key West call ‘a chancre on your anchor,’ ever hear that one, Miss? While you was studyin up on gonorrhea?”

  Startled by this attack, Sally’s sharp tongue faltered, and she groped for a response, flushed close to tears. “Have you ever felt the least respect for women? Ever in your life?”