FRANK B. TIPPINS

In the first days of 1901, a young feller from the telegraph came by my office with a request from the Monroe County sheriff that Lee County detain an E. A. or E. J. Watson as the leading suspect in the murder of two Key West runaways at Lost Man’s River.

In order to locate Mr. Watson, the first place I would have to go was his own house. To console myself after Carrie’s marriage—to pick the scab, said sly Jim Cole, who saw right through me—I’d continued paying calls on Mrs. Watson after she and the boys moved to Anderson Avenue because Carrie came to visit every day. Ashamed of myself, I observed young Mrs. Langford for signs of discontent with Walter while listening carefully for any stray word that might feed my nagging curiosity about her father. At that time, I had glimpsed that man just once and from behind, a broadbacked figure in a black Western hat and well-cut suit, walking down First Street to the dock one early morning.

Ordinarily I walked unarmed around Fort Myers. That day I strapped a pistol underneath my coat. With Miss Carrie’s mother failing fast, it seemed wrong to intrude on that sad family, and halfway there, I decided it made more sense to find Walt Langford and see what information he could give me, accepting the risk that he might warn his father-in-law. Circling back toward Langford & Hendry, I wondered if I was afraid, then caught myself brooding yet again about how a bad drinker like Walt Langford might abuse a girl—a woman—who was no more than a child. This rumination made me shift my wad and spit my old regret into the dust, making old Mrs. Summerlin—Good morning, ma’am!—hop sideways on the boardwalk, pretending I was out to soil her shoe.

Like all of our town’s small emporiums, Langford & Hendry down on First Street was a frame building, slapped up quick on a mud street in a weedy line of ramshackle storefronts, livery stables, and blacksmith sheds—downtown in a cow town, as Cole said. Outside the door which led to the upstairs offices hunched Billie Conapatchie, a Mikasuki Creek raised up and educated by the Hendry family. Billie wore a bowler hat instead of the traditional bright turban; his puff-sleeve calico Injun shirt with bright red and yellow ribbons had been stuffed into old britches which stopped well short of his scarred ankles and scuffed feet. Squatting at favored lookout points, he spied on white-man life while awaiting the next public meeting or church service, or funeral or theatrical or wedding. Despite faithful attendance at these functions, he understood scarcely a word—or so he pretended, having come close to execution by his people for learning his mite of English at Fort Myers School. What passed through Billie Conapatchie’s head was a great mystery, but I suspected that, even as an outcast, he served his people as sentinel crow, alert for some dangerous shift in course these white men might be making. At the same time, he had never lost his deep indifference to our ways and so he only grunted at my greeting, keeping an eye on the thickset curly man now crossing the mud street who was fixing us in place with a pointed finger.

“Nailing down the Injun vote there, Sheriff?” In his dread of silence, hurrying from one encounter to another, this man would shout some jovial insult to get attention to himself, taking over every conversation even before he waddled in to join it. When I pretended not to notice the big pink hand already thrust in my direction, it fell to yanking at the crotch of his big trousers. Undaunted, Jim Cole yelled at Billie, “Who gets to vote first? Injuns or women?” Cole jeered his silence. “How’d that go, Chief? Don’t go talking our ear off, Chief!” He coughed up a short laugh at his own wit and followed me into the building, heaving himself up the narrow stair behind me.

Like all our cattlemen, Cole had invested his war profits in a big new house, but unlike the Summerlins and Hendrys, and the Langfords, too, this man had no love for the land nor any feel for cattle. Despite all his coarse cowboy talk, as old Jake Summerlin used to say, Cole sat a horse with all the style of a big sack of horse shit.

Banging open Langford’s door, he boomed, “Well, lookee who’s settin in his daddy’s seat, and poor ol’ Doc not cold yet!” He shouted his raucous laugh to the whole thin building. Grinning, Walt waved his guest into the one comfortable chair, where Cole sprawled back like an old whore and slapped his hands down on the leather arms. “How’s the child-wife, you damn cradle robber? How come we ain’t seen no sign of kiddies?”

I ignored Cole’s wink, ashamed because I’d wondered the same thing, and sorry that poor Walt felt obliged to snicker. No longer ruddy from his years out in the pinelands, Langford was red-streaked near the nose from the whiskey he sipped to kill long hours in his father’s office.

“Got some business with you, Walt,” I said. Cole grumped, “Well, spit it out then, we ain’t got all day,” and Langford said, “No use trying to keep a secret from Cap’n Jim, ain’t that right, Jim?”

“Isn’t,” Cole said, mopping his neck. “Ain’t Carrie told you about isn’t? You ain’t out hunting cows no more, young feller, you’re a damn cattle king! If I’m putting you up for county commissioner, you got to talk good American, same as the rest of us iggerant sumbitches.”

There was something shrewd and humorous about Jim Cole, something honest in his cynicism and lack of tact. All the same, I found it hard to smile. To Walt, I said, “I heard your father-in-law might be in town.”

Langford moved behind his desk and waved me to a chair. “That so?” he said.

I took my hat off but remained standing, gazing out the narrow window at the storefront gallery across the street where on election day a Tippins crowd had been scattered by gunfire and the whine of bullets from the general direction of the saloon owned by Taff O. Langford, the incumbent’s cousin. I stayed where I was until a few regathered, then spoke the lines that won me the election: They have the Winchesters, gentlemen. You have the votes. Sheriff Tom Langford was turned out of office the next day.

“Goddammit, Frank, don’t stand there looming just cause you’re so tall.” Cole’s smile looked pinned onto his jowls. The eyes in his soft face were hard—the opposite of Langford, whose eyes were gentle in a face still more or less lean. Cole had a long curlicue mouth and nostrils cocked a little high like pink and hairy holes, snuffling and yearning for ripe odors. “First you take ol’ T. W.’s job and now you’re doggin Carrie’s daddy who ain’t even in your jurisdiction. And here Walt’s daddy ain’t been dead a year and Carrie’s mama fadin down right before our eyes. That’s what Walt here has to tend to every morning, noon, and night. And even so, you come banging in here—”

“Easy, Jim.” Langford was smiling, holding both hands high. “Frank and me rode together in the Cypress, we’re good friends. He’s always welcome.”

Jim Cole had been hollering so loud that folks had stopped out on the street under the window. What Cole was really angriest about was my refusal to support his alibi when, three months earlier, a revenue cutter impounded his ship at Punta Rassa. On her regular run, the Lily White had delivered cattle to the Key West slaughterhouse, and rather than make the return run with her holds empty, she had met a Cuban vessel off the Marquesas to take on a rum cargo on which no duty had been paid. Cole testified that his rascally captain had taken on that contraband without his knowledge. No one believed this and some wondered at the greed that drove prosperous businessmen to skirt the laws of the democracy they claimed to be so proud of, steal from their own government by overcharging for their beef while paying their lawyers to cheat it of its taxes.

I said to Langford, “Trouble in the Islands.”

“I know that, Frank.”

“He’s in town, then?”

“No.” Walt raised his hands as if I’d said, This is a stickup. “I never saw him and I don’t know where he’s headed so don’t ask me.”

“Dammit, Walt, he’s got no right to ask you!” Cole exploded. “Got no jurisdiction!”

Langford accompanied me onto the landing. “He’s the only suspect, then?”

“So far.” I shrugged. “No known witnesses, no good evidence, and not much doubt.” I started down the stairs.

“Don’t upset Carrie, all right, Frank? She never saw him. He stopped only long enough to say his last good-byes to Mrs. Watson. Admitted there’d been trouble. She told Carrie.” Langford awaited me. “That’s the truth. He’s gone. Which don’t mean I will let you know if he comes back.”

Jim Cole boomed out, “If he comes back, I’m running that man for sheriff!” Langford guffawed briefly. “Ol’ Jim,” Walt sighed, pumping out another laugh, as if unable to get over such a comical person. I shook my head over ol’ Jim, too, to help Walt out. That old Indian watched us.