Lost Man’s River

At Lost Man’s Key

Toward sundown an ancient cabin boat came down the river. Though the estuary tide was low, she made her way at near full speed, her wash carving the oyster bars as she circled up into the current with a grumpy gurgling. With her engine cut, her bow coasted ashore on the sand point with a hard crunching scrape.

A loud hoarse voice hailed the men around the fire. “You fellers seen any fish around this river that might like a ride in this old boat?”

“Oh Lord.” Sally rose and moved away toward the point.

“Heck, I know that feller,” Andy said, surprised. Whidden was yelling, “Well now, old-timer, are you lost or what? Maybe your eyesight ain’t so good no more. This here’s Miami!”

“That a fact?” The boatman heaved out a stern anchor—ker-plunk—then put his hands upon his hips, looking around him with proprietary satisfaction at the evening river. “Well, if I am lost, which ain’t too likely, I found the right place to be lost in, looks like to me!”

“Well, come ashore, then! Got good fish to eat!”

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.

Aunt Josie and poor pale little Pearl were hidden someplace in that silent house. I remember a shaft of sunlight through the window that struck an open jug of shine on our pine table, and I had a gulp of it to get my nerve up. Then I went to my father, who was snoring like a bullfrog on his bed, with muddy boots on. I opened up the storm shutters to have some light, then shook him awake and said, “Forgive me, Papa.” I was scared to death! Then I took a deep breath and told him about those colored boys. “The hogs found ’em,” I said, to fill an awful silence.

Papa opened up one eye, so red and raw it looked like the slit throat of a chicken. Then he heaved away, dragging a pillow over his head, he couldn’t take the light nor stand the sight of me. But after a while his voice growled out that he knew nothing about it. Next he snarled that Mr. Wally Tucker better be damned careful about spreading slander against E. J. Watson. He asked if I knew that those damned Tuckers had forfeited back wages by running out on their damned contract? This reminded him that he was shorthanded for the harvest, and he reared up with a roar and hurled himself out of bed as if he could still catch them, but he blacked out and crashed against the wall and sagged down in a heap behind the door.

At these times, “hair of the dog” was all that helped. By the time I came back with the jug, he was sitting on the bed edge holding his head, wheezing for breath. He stunk like a bear and his skin was blotchy and his breath was terrible. I was very much afraid. I whispered, “You told me you paid them, Papa, took them to Fort Myers.” He opened his eyes and looked me over and then he shook his head. “Those two owed me money, they were thieves.” He took a last big slug out of his jug and sighed. “I couldn’t pay ’em, boy,” he muttered. “Nothing to pay ’em with.” He shoved the jug at me. “I have some business to take care of. Hide this jug from me.” He pulled it back and gulped at it one last time before handing it over, and I went outside and hid it on that ledge under the cistern cover where we placed the buckets when we fetched water, remember?

I missed those Tuckers badly, they were my good friends. Without them, the Bend seemed very grim and lonely. Even Tant had gone away, there was no one to talk to but Aunt Josie. My father went out with me to rebury Ted and Zachariah, even mumbled some kind of a rough prayer. I wanted to believe what he tried to hint (not very seriously) that other field hands must have killed them for their pay, and meanwhile he instructed all of us to forget this. There was nothing to be done about it, he said.

After their long year of hard work, the poor Tuckers had departed unpaid and penniless, without stores, in worn-out clothes. They got no farther south than Lost Man’s Key. They lived there in their little sloop while they built a shelter, borrowing a gillnet and a few tools from the Hardens while they farmed a piece of ground across the river mouth, back of South Lost Man’s.

Toward the end of that year, Winky Atwell from Rodgers River showed up at the Bend with his younger brother. He wanted to let Mr. Watson know he was moving his family back south to Key West—was Mr. Watson still interested in buying up their claim on Lost Man’s Key? But after he had bought and paid for it, and everyone was celebrating, the Atwells advised him that the Tuckers had been camping there to get away from the mosquitoes, though Wally rowed across the channel every day to tend his crop. They had a little shack there on the shell ridge, and a small cistern and a little dock. Since Bet was in a family way, perhaps Mr. Watson would not mind if those young folks got their little harvest in before they had to leave. Papa roared that he would mind that very much. Being drunk on that day, too, he sent a rough note back with Atwells notifying the Tuckers that by Monday next, they must get off his paid-up claim at Lost Man’s Key.

Two days later the Atwells, very nervous, brought an answer from Wally Tucker reminding Mr. Watson that they were owed a year’s back pay and would not leave there “until hell burns over.” Those back wages amounted to full payment of a five-year lease on Lost Man’s Key. My heart sank when I saw what Wally wrote, because Mr. Watson took that as a challenge and a threat. He muttered something about hell burning over somewhat sooner than some people might think, and he didn’t seem to care that Josie heard him.

That woman was so crazy for him that nothing bothered her, I guess, and no secret that would do him harm ever passed her lips. Even if Josie knew about those hog-chewed cadavers in the woods, she would have claimed she didn’t know a thing about “those darned ol’ niggers,” all she knew was that her “Jack” Watson had had a showdown with the Tuckers because they were squatters on his claim who insulted and defied him when he sent word to get off.

The truth was, their defiance had reminded him of what those young people knew, and reminded him, too, that feeling wronged, they might take their story to the Sheriff at Key West, who had always welcomed evidence against Ed Watson.

On New Year’s Eve—the last night of the old century—Papa broke out a new jug of Tant’s moonshine, but we didn’t celebrate. He sat down heavily at the table and studied Tucker’s note over and over as he drank. Aunt Josie came in with Pearl, in hope of a little cheer, but she took one look at his grim face and went right out again and sat in the gloomy kitchen in the twilight. She knew better than to speak to him, and she signaled me to keep my mouth shut, too.

Aunt Josie fixed some supper but he hardly ate. He drank and brooded until nearly midnight. Finally he rose and went outside and looked at the full moon and came back in and got his gun and said, “Let’s go.” Praying he would pass out and sleep it off, I said I was tired and that one night made no difference, we should wait till daylight. But Aunt Josie in the doorway put a finger to her lips, fearful of the consequences if I protested.

We took the sailing skiff. There was no wind. In the light of the moon, I rowed him upriver on the incoming tide and on past Possum Key to the eastern bays. In all that long journey, he never twitched, never uttered a sound, but sat there jutted up out of the stern like an old stump, silhouetted on the moonlit water. That black hat shaded his face from the moon, his eyes were hidden.

Some time after midnight, we went ashore on Onion Key and slept a little. I was exhausted when he woke me in the dark, and I asked why we had to leave there before daybreak. His hard low grunt of warning meant I was not to speak again.

It was cold before daybreak, with a cold mist on the water. I rowed hard to get warm. Descending Lost Man’s River, there was breeze, and I raised the sail. That old skiff slipped swiftly down the current in the early mists and on across the empty grayness of First Lost Man’s Bay, with the dark bulk of him, still mute, hunched in the stern.

At first light, we slid the skiff into the mangroves and waded around to the sand point on the south end of the Key. Already afraid, I dared not ask why we were sneaking up on Bet and Wally when our mission was to run them off the claim. I guess I knew he had not come there to discuss things. In that first dawn of the new year, my teeth were chattering with cold and fear.

We slipped along through the low wood. Soon we could see between the trees the stretch of shore where Tucker’s little sloop was moored off the Gulf beach. His driftwood shack with palm-thatch roof was back up on the shell ridge, in thin shade. Like most Islanders, the Tuckers rose at the first light, and Wally was already outside, perched on a driftwood log mending his galluses. He must have been expecting trouble, because he had leaned his rifle against the log beside him.

Papa gave me a kind of a funny wince, like he had no choice about what he had to do. Then he moved forward out of the sea grape with his old double-barrel down along his leg, crossing the sand in stiff short steps like a bristled-up male dog. He made no sound that I could hear, yet Tucker, being extra wary, must have picked up that tiny pinching of the sand. His gallus strap and sail needle and twine fell from his hand as he whirled, already reaching for his gun. At that instant he stopped that hand and moved the other one out to the side before slowly raising both.

Wally swallowed, as if sickened by the twin muzzle holes of that raised shotgun. Seeing no mercy in my father’s face, he did not ask for any. He held my eye for a long moment, as if there were something I could do. He spoke to me while he watched Papa, saying, “Please, Rob. Take care of poor Bet.” Perhaps he forgave me, knowing I was there against my will. Then he looked his executioner squarely in the eye, as if resigned to his fate. Papa knew better. Cursing, he swung the shotgun up in a quick snap as Tucker spun sideways toward his gun, and the scene exploded in red haze as Wally, blown clean over that log, fell twisted to the sand. A voice screamed, “Oh Christ Jesus no!” It was not Bet as I first thought but me.

Bet ran outside, holding a pot, and she screamed, too, at the sight of her beloved, kicking and shuddering on the new morning sand. Surely they had expected something, for she kept her head and did not run toward her young husband. She dropped her pot and lit out for the woods, very fast for a woman so close to term. I see her still, her white shift sailing over that pale sand like a departing spirit.

Your father—our father—murdered Tucker in cold blood. I never knew till he had done it that this was his intention even before we departed Chatham Bend. And perhaps he hadn’t really known it either, for his face looked unimaginably sad and weary, as if the last of his life anger had drained out of him. He seemed bewildered, like someone arrived in a dark realm of no return. In that moment—for all took place while the ghostly form of that young girl was still crossing the beach ridge into the trees—what struck me as most strange was his quiet demeanor, his unnatural and horrifying calm.

“You see that, boy? He tried to kill me,” he said dully.

Leaning his shotgun on the driftwood where Tucker himself had perched moments before, he eased himself down, seating himself, and planted his hands upon his knees, his boots not two feet from the body, which was still bloody and shuddering like a felled steer. Then he reached into his coat and took out his revolver, extending it butt first. In my crazed state, I imagined he was inviting me to execute him, and I took the gun and pointed it at his blue eyes. I was gagging and choking, knowing there could be no future, that my life was finished. I think I might have pulled the trigger if he had not smiled. I stared at him, and my arm lowered. Then he pointed at the sea wood, saying, “If she gets too deep into the brush, we just might lose her.” And he mentioned that the families who lived down South Lost Man’s Beach who might come to investigate that shot. We could not lose time hunting her down.

I stood stupidly, unable to take in what he was saying. Patiently he said that Bet Tucker was a witness. I must go after her at once. “We cannot stay here,” he repeated gently, and still I did not move. “You came this far, Rob. You better finish it.”

I gasped, teeth chattering, whole body shivering, I was fighting with all my might not to be sick. I yelled, “You finish it!” He gazed where she had gone. “I would take care of it myself,” he said, “but I’d never catch her. It is up to you.” I started yelling. Shooting these poor young people in cold blood was something terrible and crazy, we would burn in hell!

He was losing patience now, although still calm. He folded his arms upon his chest and said, “Well, Rob, that’s possible. But meanwhile, if she gets away, we are going to hang.”

I would not listen. I couldn’t look at Wally’s body without retching, so how could I run down his poor Bet and point a gun at her and take her life? I wept. “Don’t make me do it, Papa! I can’t do it!”

“Why, sure you can, Son,” he told me then, “and you best jump to it, because you are an accomplice. It’s your life or hers, look at it that way.”

“You told me we were coming here to settle up our claim!”

“That’s what we did,” he said. He stood up then and turned his back to me, looking out toward the Gulf horizon. “Too late for talk,” he said.

I was running. I was screaming the whole way. Whether that scream was heard there on that lonely river or whether it was only in my heart I do not know.

Being so cumbersome, poor Bet had not run far. In that thick tangle, there was no place to run to. I found sand scuffs where she had fallen to her knees and crawled in under a big sea grape. Panting like a doe, she lay big-bellied on her side, wide-eyed in the shock of what had happened. I stopped at a little distance. Seeing me, she whimpered, just a little. “Oh Rob,” she murmured. “We did you no harm.”

I called out, “Please, Bet, please don’t look! I beg of you!” I crept up then and knelt beside her, and she breathed my name again just once, softly, as if trying to imagine such a person.

I never expected death to be so … intimate? That white skin pulsing at her temple, the sun-filled hair and small pink ear, clean and transparent as a seashell in the morning light—so full of life! Her eyes were open and she seemed to pray, her parted lips yearning for salvation like a thirsting creature. She never looked into my eyes nor spoke another word on earth, just stared away toward the bright morning water.

Raging at myself to be merciful and quick, I grasped my wrist to steady my gun hand. Even so, it shook as I raised the revolver. Already steps were coming up behind, crushing the sand, and hearing them, her eyes flew wider and her whole body trembled. Before she could shriek, I placed the muzzle to her ear, forcing my breath into my gut to steel myself and crying aloud as I pulled back on the trigger. I pulled her life clean out of her. My head exploded with red noise. Spattered crimson with her life, I fainted.

For a while after I became aware, I lay there in the morning dance of sea grape leaves reflected on the sand. Light and branches, sky and turquoise water—all was calm, as in a dream of heaven.

I forced open my eyes. I yelled in terror. She was gone. Closing my eyes again, I prayed for sleep, I prayed that nothing had taken place, that the dream of trees and sky and water might not end.

He came and leaned and shook my shoulder. Gently, he said, “Come along, it’s time to go.” He had already hauled the bodies out into the river. Alive and unharmed in the warm womb of its mother, the unborn kicked in blind foreboding beneath the sunny riffles of the current.

I struggled to stand up but I could not. The weakness and frustration broke me, and I sobbed. I saw the boot prints, the sand kicked over the dark bloodstain, like a fatal shadow on the earth.

He leaned and took me underneath one arm and lifted me easily onto my feet. He used a brush of leaves and twigs to scrape the brains and bloody skull bits from my breast, for I had fallen down across her body. Never before had this man touched me with such kindness, nor taken care of me in this strong loving way. I actually thought, What took so long? After all these years, he loves me! But his compassion—if that is what it was—had come too late. My life was destroyed beyond the last hope of redemption. What had happened here had bound me in a shroud. I was a dead man from that day forward, forever and ever and amen.

I retched and fought away from him but fell, too weak to run. He bent again and lifted me, half-carried me toward the skiff.

With hard short strokes he rowed upriver, against the ebb tide. His heavy coat lay on the thwart beside me. He himself seemed stunned, half-dead, and he had forgotten the revolver. My hand found the gun furtively, over and over, whenever he turned to see the course ahead. I wanted to take it, cover it with my shirt, but I felt too shaken and afraid. In that long noon, ascending Lost Man’s River, I realized I should have killed him when he first gave me that gun, sparing Bet Tucker and her baby. Now I had taken those two lives and lost my own.

He told me on the long row home that the delta tide would carry the bodies off the shallow bank into the channel and the deeper water, where sharks following the blood mist in toward shore would find them. I did not answer him. I could not. I felt a loathing as profound as nausea. I never spoke a word to him again.

By oar and sail, he returned to Chatham Bend, using the inland passages to avoid being seen by the Lost Man’s settlers or the Hardens on Wood Key or the few drifters and net fishermen along that coast. He told me to keep my head below the gunwales, so that if the bodies were discovered and Watson’s skiff had been reported in that region, the son would not be implicated in the alleged crimes. That was his word that day—“alleged”—and that is the word that you, Luke, are still clinging to.

All that New Year’s afternoon, curled up like a hound on the bilge boards near his boots, I observed that murderous drunkard at the tiller, the blue eyes squinted in the sun, the ginger beard under the scuffed black hat, against the sun shafts and dark rising towers of far cumulus.

At the Bend, Aunt Josie was nowhere to be seen. He resumed drinking. Before he finally lost consciousness, he reviled me for ingratitude and cowardice and shouted threats against imagined enemies, while saving his vilest curses for the Tuckers. I found the revolver and I aimed it, but I could not fire.

That evening I slipped the schooner’s lines and drifted her downriver on a falling tide. At first light, I worked her out beyond Mormon Key, where an onshore wind was chipping up the surface, and ran a course south for Key West, where our cousin Thomas Collins worked in a shipping office. Tom found a buyer right away because I sold the schooner cheap, aware of the one who, even now, must be in hard pursuit of me, to claim her. That same night I shipped out as a crewman on a Mallory steamer, bound for New York City.

In this way, your brother forsook home and family. My history in the half century since (under an alias) is not worth recording, having no relevance to your Watson archive.

(signed) R. B. Watson

At Lost Man’s Key

SPECK DANIELS