Lost Man's River (43 page)

“Eddie? You really don't know who I am?”

“What's that?” Eddie peered again, in great alarm. “Of course I know! What do you want?”

Lucius reached out to touch his arm, trying to calm him. “I need your signature on a petition. To save Papa's house. And I'm preparing a biography of Papa, and there are some questions—”

“Oh no, you don't!” Eddie Watson pushed past him and tottered down the steps into the sunlight, where he turned and pointed an unsteady finger. “Damn you, you're just stirring up more trouble, same way you always did! It's family business, will you
never
understand? It's
family
business!” He waved wildly at the house. “You never even came to see your sister, and you broke her heart!”

“And I have to check with you about a list of men that I sent years ago to Rob—”

“I took care of
that
darned thing, don't worry! I took care of
that
!” But his eye did not hold, and he glowered at the Danielses. “None of you have any business here! You are trespassing upon church property! I am calling the police!” And he rushed off down the street, waving his arms.

They perched like three birds on the porch steps, watching him go. “Will he really do that?” Lucius asked.

Weeks Daniels nodded. “Poor Eddie's always calling in complaints. Kind of a hobby. They don't pay him any mind at all.”

Far up the street, Mr. E. E. Watson, hobbling wildly, disappeared around the corner. The hollow street of the old river town stood gaunt and empty, as if that silhouette of his lost brother had lifted up into the sun like a stray cinder. He wondered if they would ever meet again.

“Eddie always tried to be like Carrie—uptown people, wealthy kind of people,” Honey reflected. “Not that you ever spoke against 'em, Colonel.”

“I never spoke of them at all!” he mourned. “I always thought they were ashamed because their brother was just a fisherman. Who drank too much.” He smiled unhappily. “E. E. Watson and his Augusta had to keep up appearances, after all. My brother is a gentleman, as I'm sure he is the first to let folks know!”

“Oh, he's not so bad, I guess.” Honey worried that she and Weeks might have been unkind. “In his younger days, Eddie was so friendly, remember, Weeks?”

“Maybe too friendly,” Weeks decided, after a pause. “Big hearty man, big but not strong. Always dressed up tight cause he wanted to look like Banker Langford's brother-in-law, wanted folks to call him Mr. Watson. But I think he knew folks never took to him, not the way they took to his younger brother. Colonel was always just plain Colonel, just himself. He could go into any house in Florida and be all right.” In his spontaneous surge of affection, Weeks Daniels went red, glaring fiercely at the tourist traffic coming off the river bridge, as if expecting the arrival from the north of a long-lost friend. “I never heard one bad word about Colonel Watson.”

“Better go talk to Speck, then,” Lucius protested, feeling disloyal to his brother and somehow fraudulent.

Anxious to finish, Weeks Daniels ignored him. “I reckon Eddie done the best he could. Having his sister here in town gave him the heart to stay. Used to let on how his rightful home was back up north where he was born, used to talk about retiring one day to Columbia County, but the years came and went and he's still here.

“E. E. Watson, Insurance. New customers would say, ‘You
the
Ed Watson?
You ain't fixin to murder me, are ye, if I don't pay up my premiums?'—joking him, you know, slapping him on the back. And Eddie never blinked an eye, he made the same answer over and over—
Better watch your step, all right!
—and went right on filling out the forms. Never occurred to them damn jackasses that Watson's son might be a tender kind of feller with real feelings. The few that even noticed that the poor man minded, they would blame their own stupidity on Eddie. Said, ‘Why hell, if that feller can't take it, he ought to have left town long ago, either that or change his goddamn name!'

“Mostly he stayed pretty calm about it. In his own way, Eddie Watson is as mulish as his daddy. He aimed to be a fine upstanding citizen no matter what. Got himself seen regular at church and stuck to business, went bird hunting once in a while, played golf at the new country club, tried to fit in. For a while he even headed up the Masons! Eddie would not back up, no matter what, and he weren't about to change his name.

“Only thing, in recent years, he kind of forgot to keep up his appearances. He even give up on Mr. E. E. Watson for a while, begun to call himself Ed Watson, Junior. Took a kind of pride in that—not in his daddy, not exactly, but in being the son of somebody so famous. Made him a somebody in his own right, and it brung in customers. People might stop by the agency to take a gander at Bloody Watson's son, and buying a policy was their excuse to shake his hand. Eddie was always a businessman, first and foremost, and he discovered that a nice dark past paid off!

“Them last years before he lost the agency, Eddie got to hinting to the winter visitors that he was some kind of a chip off the old block. Local folks always thought of him as pretty meek and mild behind his bluster, but to outsiders he might hint he had a violent streak, same as his daddy. Even hauled out this darn list he'd put together of those Chokoloskee men who finished E. J. Watson, and let on about how he went down there and took care of the ringleaders. ‘Didn't have no choice about it,' Eddie said. ‘Had to defend the honor of the family!' ”

Lucius took a long deep breath but he said nothing.

Honey was getting to her feet. The day was late. “Of course one untruth leads to another,” she murmured. “His Neva was hardly laid to rest before Eddie took his secretary to marry, and he hardly got that woman home before she upped and left. So he took a third one, never bothered to let on about the second!”

Weeks smiled at Lucius, clinging to his hand an extra second. “When you first went back to the Islands, Colonel, you used to say you had no family to speak of, but you always had our Jenkins-Daniels bunch. Well, you still have us, what is left of us. Come see us, hear?”

Lucius took their hands—all three held hands—so that they stood in a small circle on the sidewalk. “I was lucky to have the Jenkins-Daniels bunch,” he murmured with emotion, “and I'm truly sorry I lost touch. Never taking the trouble to find out what became of Pearl—that's inexcusable! I never was the brother to her that I should have been.”

Honey said, “Colonel? I have Pearl's phone number right in this purse someplace.” And Weeks Daniels said, “You accepted her as your sister. That's a lot more than the others done.”

Pearl had been nine or ten when their father died, a self-starved creature, a pale fugitive from the sun. Even in those days—she clung to this sad adornment most of her life—she wore a thin white ribbon in her thin blond hair. It was that ribbon which gnawed at his heart now. Pearl had been struck speechless by her father's death, while Aunt Josie, who had lost the dead man's baby boy in the hurricane only the week before, had torn her hair and fled down the storm-rutted cart tracks at Caxambas, shrieking in woe.

His sister Pearl, he mourned, his sister Carrie. Lucy Summerlin. How would dear Mama have judged his failure to protect the tender lives and eager feelings entrusted to his care? Hearing Pearl's thin voice over the wire, he was stricken by sadness, self-disgust.

Who are you? Who is calling me?

Pearl?

Who is calling me? Hello?

This is Lucius! Your brother Lucius.

Brother Who?

Pearl, this is Lucius! This is Colonel! I called to say hello! I called to see how you were getting along!

Why are you hollering? Did you say Colonel Watson? Oh Good Lord! Oh Colonel Lucius honey, are you sure you are all right? I was so worried, sweetheart! I went to see Miss Lucy Summerlin to ask where you were and she told me how she only wished she knew! She was so sweet to me, you know! She said I looked like you! Miss Lucy loves you dearly, do you know that? Why did you abandon her? You broke her heart! O yes I know, I know, that was some years ago. Lucius? Can you believe our life has gone so fast? Do you look as terrible and old as I do? Where are you? What are you doing there? Why are you calling me? What do you want?

I don't want anything, Pearl. Please don't be upset. I only wanted to speak to you, see how you were. Pearl honey? I feel just terrible that I haven't called before, that I didn't even know what had become of you!

Well, what's become of
you,
sweetheart? What are you doing?

I—well, I'm gathering information for a book about Papa.

Who?

About our father.

Our Father Who Art in Heaven, Hallowed be Thy Name, Thy Kingdom Come—that's
my
Father! Who Art in Heaven! Those men blew
your
father to Kingdom Come
—

Pearl, listen, he was your dad, too—

Do you know about the J for Jack? In E. J. Watson? My mother was married to Jack Watson! She was a lovely person! My mother was married seven times—one husband twice—and she outlived the whole darn bunch! But she only had one daughter by her E. Jack Watson—that was me!

Pearl, listen to me—

Lucius? Remember how you always stopped by to see us on your way north and south from Chatham? Remember those beautiful days on the salt water? When we went everywhere by boat because there were no roads? It was hard times—a lot of work and children and hard times, remember, Lucius? When did we stop calling you Lucius? Lucius, how come you forgot about me? What do you want now?

Honey, I wanted to ask about your memories of Papa—

He's dead. I am retired now. Who gave you my phone number? What are you going to do with my information? I really don't care, I am so glad to help you. Oh, I've missed you, Colonel!

Pearl? Don't cry—

It's late in the day to try to understand what happened, but don't you give it up, you keep on trying. One man who claimed to be real close to your daddy, that was Wiley Bostic. Old Man Bostic got drunk one night at Barfield's, he told me he oiled up Daddy's shotgun cartridges so's they wouldn't fire, said he didn't want to see nobody hurt! You believe that? Because everyone claimed a lot of things back at that time
.

Everyone wanted a claim on Mr. Watson, for some reason.

My mother was married to your father and you used to come visiting at Caxambas and now here we are, right on the telephone! It's a small world!

Well, yes, it is, Pearl.

Jack Watson died while my mother was married to him. He was with Belle Starr before that. Also Jesse James and that crowd. A lot of people didn't like him, but I loved him
.

I imagine your mother loved him, too.

Yes, she did! The only thing, she was leery of his temper, he might put a razor to her neck. I don't know if he had a drinking problem or what. Course all the men drank. They never considered heavy drinking a real problem back in those days, not the way they do today
.

Pearl, I wanted to check somebody's story with you. Did your mother ever speak about the hired hand our father killed at Chatham Bend because this man insulted her nice peas?

No, I did not hear about insulted peas. Which doesn't mean that he might not have killed somebody
.

Did he ever threaten you?

No! No! No! He loved all his children! You know something? I saw the man who killed him. After we got run out of Caxambas, we were living across the canal in Naples, which was not Colored Town back then. They had real boundary lines to keep out black people. Only the whites could cross, isn't that crazy? Because our local coloreds never bothered people, it was those ones from up North who caused the trouble. Anyway, my mother pointed her finger. She said, “That mulatta over yonder killed your daddy.” I don't recall his name. I do recall he was very light in color. But my mother never held a thing against him, no she didn't. Said he never would have done that on his own, he was put up to it. She blamed the white fellers
.

Pearl? You must be talking about Henry Short—

That's the one. Before Earl Helveston run off on me, we had a talk about my daddy. Earl just purely loved Jack Watson, maybe because he was practicing up to be that way himself! He discussed some things, bad deeds, y'know. Swore me to secrecy! Said them Marco boys would kill him just for the knowing of it. I have got it all wrote down someplace. Earl always said, “I love that man no matter what he did.” Said, “That man tell me do something, I would jump to it.”

That's the effect he had on some people, all right.

One time he sent word to Lost Man's Key to tell this man to get off of his property. Said, “I will give you so much time, then you better be gone.” Cause if he had something coming to him, he wanted it right then, he didn't care to wait until tomorrow. But the man sent back a sassy note—that was his finish. It's like Earl said, “If Jack Watson told you he would kill you, he would do it. Being a man of his word, he expected the same integrity in others.”