Lost Man's River: Shadow Country Trilogy

  Lucius said, “Rob’s not a killer. He never wanted to kill anyone. Not ever.” But there was no way to explain why he believed this, and he did not try.

  “You can deny it all you want. Chicken don’t deny it.” Speck would not explain this. Morose, he was gazing back toward the silhouetted figures at the fire. As suddenly as it had flared, his rage had guttered out, and his voice was quiet. “Anyways, we can’t let him loose till we are finished, and even then we got a problem cause he seen too much. We ain’t got time to mess with him, is what it is. Junior and them got their own idea how to clean up this damn mess, and you don’t come up with a better one pretty damn quick, that’s what has to happen.”

  “Cold-blooded murder? That what they’re talking about?”

  “They’re through talkin, Colonel,” Speck said quietly, folding his arms upon his chest.

  Then he said, “Let’s say we turn ol’ Chicken loose. The law is after him. You was mentionin that nigger cook—”

  “Oh hell no! It wasn’t him!”

  “Well, you know that, and Dyer, too, I reckon. All the same, the law told Dyer they would settle for the nigger. They got all the witnesses they need—all them scared old people who was up all night with heartburn. Them kind will want somebody to pay. And Dyer says it’s a nice tight case that will teach them kind of smart-mouth niggers a good lesson.”

  Speck’s mean chuckle came from down deep in his belly. “I asked him, Do you really want to go after that man, and he says, ‘Hell yes, I’m a law-and-order man, I don’t believe in coddlin no criminals.’ Respects the hell out of the law and never seen a jail he didn’t like. Says, ‘I’m out for justice or my name ain’t Watson Dyer.’ ” Speck emitted a low, hard bark of derision. “Sure hates to mess with our American justice system, Dyer says. And otherwise he’d feel obliged to testify against ol’ Chicken, who don’t stand a Chinaman’s chance of gettin off. Man out in the parkin lot, he spotted an old white man in a red neckerchief shootin at the victim’s car from a hotel window. Seen him plenty good enough to testify that it weren’t no black boy in a chef’s outfit who got loose some way in a whites-only room on the sixth floor.”

  “Rob shot at the car tires. He never shot at Dyer.”

  “Pretty hard to sell that to a judge, with Chicken’s record.”

  “My brother will confess before he lets that black man go to jail for him. That’s who he is.”

  Speck Daniels snickered. “Specially when all that poor coon ever done was go to cuttin on a white customer with a damn carvin knife!” He heaved around and squinted at Lucius in disbelief. “Chicken was tellin me just yesterday how he wasted maybe half his life in one pen or another, and you’re goin to set there and tell me you would let that old feller get locked away for the rest of his natural life? For a crazy nigger?”

  Daniels searched Lucius’s eyes for doubt and nodded when he found some. “I was warnin Chicken only this mornin how we might have to kill him, and he told me that was fine by him. He meant it, too. Said he had his fill of this shitty life and couldn’t tolerate no more hard time in prison, so it was no use wastin time tryin to scare him. He was scared to death of death, all right, but was scared a lot worse by the future.”

  “He’s better off dead than going to prison? That what you’re saying?”

  “That’s what he’s saying.” He held Lucius’s eye for a long time, nodding minutely. “What do you say, Lucius?”

  “He’s my brother, for Christ’s sake!”

  Heart jumping, sick and dizzy, he reeled to his feet. Driven by urgent pressure of the bladder, he staggered off toward the sea grape. But he had scarcely opened up his fly when he was punched between the shoulder blades by what turned out to be the muzzle of a hand gun. “Let’s see them hands before you turn around.”

  Startled, hurting, and incensed, Lucius took time to finish and get things straightened out, ignoring the emphysemic hacking close behind him and the steel prod nudging his bruised back. Finally he stuck his hands out to the side. “Kind of jumpy, aren’t you?” he said then, with as much contempt as his shaken voice could muster.

  “Kind of jumpy, yessir, I sure am. Which is why I’m still doin pretty good after thirty years in my same line of business.” For the second time in a fortnight, Daniels frisked him. “I have growed a nose for a certain kind of a cock-eyed sonofabitch that you give ’em any room at all, it’s goin to cost you.” He spun Lucius around harder than necessary, slapping at his chest and front pockets with the back of his free hand. “Next time, do your pissin out where I can see you.”

  Lucius struggled to remain calm. “You’re the one who’s armed, goddammit!” His voice still trembled in his shock and outrage. “You’re the one talking about eliminating witnesses! How about Addison? He gets shot, too?”

  “Shut up and listen.” In the moonlight Speck was squatted on his hunkers, using his knife to draw a quick map in the sand. He spoke quickly, coldly. “Maybe when we get our business finished up tomorrow evenin, we’ll put your brothers aboard Whirlybird’s skiff, point ’em downriver to Mormon Key. Course Junior will blow another gasket. But I’ll remind him there ain’t nowhere they can get to, not before we’re gone.”

  “Crockett will do just what you tell him, right?”

  “Junior?” Daniels snorted in a surprised response that was not quite affection. “We’re like buck deer in the rut, Junior and me. Every year the old buck stands there just a-shiverin, knowin in every snort and hoof, bristle and tine, that he can still run all the young bucks off his does”—Speck chuckled—“includin this big stupid-lookin one high-steppin towards him right this very minute. Only this time, after the dust clears, he finds himself bad hurt and all alone. He ain’t even allowed in his own herd no more.” Speck scratched his stubble. “Might happen to me the first time Junior gets it in his head that he ain’t takin no more goddamned orders. Might be tomorrow, if he don’t like my plan. And it ain’t goin to be like no damn buck deer, neither. I’ll be lucky if that sonofagun don’t kill me.”

  “So you’ll let them go?”

  “Depends,” Speck said, ambiguous again. “Can’t promise nothin.”

  “You were saying Rob was sick of life—”

  “You back on that again?” Speck was enjoying this.

  “—and suggesting that his death might be a mercy. Might be preferable. Something like that.” Hating Speck’s knowing grin, he could not go on.

  “That’s what I say. That’s what he said. What are you sayin? You don’t want us to let him go?”

  “I never said that!”

  “Not in them words, no.”

  “You say he told you he killed someone here at Lost Man’s?”

  “Damn fool had it all wrote down on paper. Had it right there with the list and the revolver. With your name on the packet.” He cocked his head. “You sure you didn’t know?” The moon glint caught his tooth when Daniels grinned. “Dyer now, he was real excited when he heard about it. Told Junior to hold that stuff for him, it might come in handy. In case Watsons didn’t cooperate or something.”

  “You’re giving Dyer the gun?”

  “I already give it back to Chicken. Without no loads, of course. He told me to bring that ol’ packet to you.”

  “What’s in it for you?”

  “Well, me ’n’ Chicken—you know. We go back a ways. Gator Hook and all.”

  “I thought you worked for Dyer.”

  Daniels nodded. “But I never owed him nothin, no more’n he owes me. Once his land claim’s settled, he won’t have no use for me, won’t want to be tied in with me at all. Won’t want nobody around who knows too much, can’t take no chances. And if he’s goin into politics, the way it looks—well, any dealins with the Daniels gang might cost him pretty dear, on down the road.”

  Before coming south, Speck had phoned his contact man at Parks headquarters, trying to find out when the Parks meeting at the Bend could be expected. The official told him that Watson Dyer had failed to appear at the co
urt hearing at Homestead, and the judge had suspended the injunction against “the demolition of the Watson premises.” It now appeared likely that demolition would be carried out before another motion for an extension or a new hearing could be filed. Why Dyer had not filed earlier, citing his emergency at Fort Myers, the official did not know. All he knew was, things were moving fast, and a large-scale operation was underway which included the requisition of a helicopter.

  His Parks man warned Speck that this operation might be more ambitious than an expedition to burn down a house. A confidential federal report had advised the Park authorities that an armed and dangerous fugitive named Robert Watson might have joined forces with the Daniels gang to engage in felonious activities at a remote location in the Lost Man’s region of the Ten Thousand Islands. Attorney Watson Dyer, the intended victim in a recent episode of attempted murder at Fort Myers in which this Robert Watson was the leading suspect, was quoted as speculating that he had known too much about the fugitive’s participation in a double murder in the Lost Man’s region many years before.

  Daniels seemed flattered that the federal agencies were using a U.S. military “helio-copter” to come after him. “Joint federal secret big-ass operation! Goin to cost us poor ol’ taxpayers maybe a million dollars, and we ain’t even going to know one thing about it! Anyone questions it, them bureaucrats will paper ’em to death, spread the responsibility all over Washington, D.C. Bureaucrats can’t pour piss out of a boot without the instructions wrote onto the heel, but when it comes to coverin their butts, you just can’t beat ’em!”

  Daniels had told his man at Parks to damn well finagle them enough time so that his depot could be cleared before the raid—either that or his official ass would fry along with theirs. “ ‘You fellers can’t prove nothin on me,’ he says. ‘You sure?’ I says. ‘We kept a fuckin ar-chive on you, Bud!’ So then he says, Well, that bein the case, he might screw up the paperwork a little, maybe delay the burnin permit for a day or two. ‘Good idea,’ I says. But he hung up on me, and I couldn’t get him back.”

  Lighting a stogie, Speck let his news sink in. “When Parks hung up on me that way, I seen straight off that Dyer sold me out. Sold you out, too. He’s changed his plan some way. He was in Everglade the other night, so he could of made that court hearin at Homestead. Watson Dyer is a very efficient feller, he ain’t the kind to miss a hearin, so when he don’t bother to show up in court, that tells me he must of cut a deal. Dyer knows right now the injunction ain’t no good, he knows that Parks is gettin set to burn the house, but in Everglade he was still talking to Junior like he’s comin in with Parks to meet you, settle up the claim for the Watson family.”

  “He told me that, too.”

  “He ain’t comin in to meet you, Colonel. Know what he’s doin? He’s settin up Speck Daniels for this raid, under the cover of burnin down the house. Rob Watson, too. Crime fightin, y’know—look real good on his record. And when it’s all over, and the Major gets the credit for bustin up them criminal activities out in the Glades, nothing that low-down Daniels bunch might say won’t never hurt him.”

  Daniels seemed honestly admiring, as if Dyer’s dealings throughout their acquaintance had been handled impeccably and with dispatch. “If I was him, I would not want me alive, knowin what I do. Dead would make a hell of a lot more sense, and Dyer is a very sensible type of feller. Plays his cards right, plays percentages, don’t go off half-cocked.” He nodded. “They’ll be lookin to catch Speck nappin on the Bend. But I aim to stay one jump ahead of ’em. Ol’ Man Speck will have flew the coop, as usual.”

  “You think all that talk of preserving the house as some kind of pioneer monument was only to line the Watsons up behind the land claim?!”

  “That plan didn’t work out. He made a deal. You really thought he cared about that house? He ain’t set foot in that old house since he left there half a century ago!”

  “He was born there!”

  “Colonel, they don’t make your kind no more! Wake up, boy! What we got here is a whole new kind of human bein! To a man like that, the house-where-he-was-born don’t mean no more than the crap that he took yesterday!” Speck shook his head. “It’s that forty acres of high ground he must be after. But all that time he was dickerin with the feds, he didn’t want to throw away no cards. He knew they was hot to burn the house cause it don’t fit in with their idea of a wilderness, and he knew he could hold ’em up for years with legal diddling. They knew that, too. Well, now he has stepped out of their way. They will burn the house but recognize the land claim.”

  “This is all wrong! There’s nothing he can do with it! That’s Park land!”

  “Well, I admit I ain’t got that part figured out. I will.”

  Lucius stood up. “They can’t burn down the Watson house with Watson standing in the door.”

  “I wouldn’t count on that if I was you. Old house all by itself, way to hell and gone out in the backcountry? Swoop in by helio-copter? They can get away with anything they want.”

  “This is the U.S. Government, dammit! This isn’t some crime syndicate or something!”

  “You don’t learn good, Colonel. Who’s goin to read ’em the Constitution way out here?”

  Speck heaved back to his feet, a little creaky. “At our age, now, a man gets stiff all over,” he grumped, “ceptin the one part that might be some use.” He was set to leer, but met by Lucius’s bleak gaze, he did not bother. Slowly they returned toward the fire.

  “If everythin goes right, your brothers will be comin downriver in that skiff tomorrow afternoon. You fellers wait for ’em at Mormon Key, and keep ’em at Mormon tomorrow night, give us a little more time in case we need it. Still with me, Colonel? You’re lookin kinda peaked, boy. Okay so far? Whidden can take that skiff in tow next mornin, run your whole bunch back north to the Bay. And after that, you get in your damn car and you drive that old man out of southwest Florida and keep him out.”

  At the boats, Lucius waded out with him and boosted him over his gunwale. A minute later, Daniels emerged from his boat cabin with the packet marked LUCIUS H. WATSON that had lain at the bottom of Rob’s satchel.

  Drunkenly Speck swung back overboard and splashed ashore. “You ain’t goin to enjoy his story, Colonel. Might be more truth in there than you was wantin.” Saying this, he leaned way forward to peer into Lucius’s eyes. “Less you been lying to yourself all these long years? About how much you really knew about your daddy?” He winked at Lucius and set off again, hailing the others, usurping the conversation even before he reached the smoke swirls and blown sparks at the driftwood fire.

  Lucius climbed aboard the Belle and lit the kerosene storm lamp in the cabin. Building a pillow out of life jackets, he lay back with the opened packet on his chest, weighing Daniels’s insinuation: All these long years—that was unfair, of course. But was it true?

  To My Little Brother “Luke”:

  Here is the truth about what happened early in 1901 at Lost Man’s River. I hope this will help you understand my sentiments or lack of same about your “Papa.” I am writing this in the sincere hope that it will end your well-meant but mistaken struggle to restore his reputation.

  I know (because I saw them, too) that our father had bold, generous qualities. I also know that he adored my mother, perhaps more than he adored yours. I don’t say that out of pettiness, I hope, but only to clarify what I say next—that he was mortally embittered when she died, and made an enemy of his firstborn throughout childhood, into early youth. Such kinship as we had came to an end on the first day of Anno Domini 1901.

  Late in 1899, Wally Tucker and his bride Elizabeth, lately of Key West, came to work for E. J. Watson at Chatham Bend. At age fourteen, Bet was no more than a child, but Tucker was close to my own age, we were twenty-two. Wally was “the driver” in the cane field, Bet helped Aunt Josie Jenkins with the housekeeping, and the wash and yard chores—slopped the hogs, tended the bees and poultry and the kitchen garden—while Josie was tending her
little Pearl.

  Late in the next year of 1900, the Tuckers fled from Chatham Bend in their small sloop after Papa’s hogs sniffed out two shallow graves way out in the northeast part of the plantation. Bet had wandered out there, calling in the hogs, which were penned up at night on account of panthers. She discovered the remains of two black field hands whom she had befriended in the months before. These hands had confided that they wished to leave the Bend. They were owed more than a year in their back wages and could not get Papa to pay attention to it.

  I ran into the Tuckers dragging their stuff down to their boat. Someone killed Zachariah and Ted, they cried, almost hysterical. I told them this was impossible, since I knew my father had paid off those hands and carried them back north to Fort Myers. Wally told me I should go see for myself, and poor Bet wept some more. Though they didn’t dare say so to his son, they seemed scared they might be next if Mr. Watson found out what they knew, and so had decided to flee the Bend at once.

  I ran out past the cane fields to the place they had described. I smelled those corpses long before I got there. I put a neckerchief to my face and went in close, and I had to get away on that same breath to keep from puking. The bodies were all bloated up, half-eaten by the hogs, and the ground chopped up by hog prints all around. I recognized the clothes. There was no question.

  By the time I got back, the Tuckers were gone. Papa was dead drunk in the house. According to Aunt Josie, who came flying out to warn me, Wally had finished loading their sloop, put Bet aboard, then took his gun and walked up to the house and demanded their year’s wages, saying not a word about the graves. Papa was incensed because they were quitting without notice, right at the start of the cane harvest, and furious also at the gun raised to his face when he threatened Wally. Being drunk, he shouted, “Shoot me, you conch bastard! You don’t dare!” It terrified Aunt Josie because it was so crazy, but as usual, E. J. Watson knew his man. Wally Tucker was not a killer, never would be. Lunging for him, your father spun and fell down hard and fell again when he tried to get up, so lay there cursing.