Shadow Country

SHADOW COUNTRY

CONTENTS

Title Page

Dedication

Acknowledgments

Author's Note

Map

E. J. Watson

Book One

                           
Prologue: October 24, 1910

                           
Erskine Thompson

                           
Richard Harden

                           
Henry Short

                           
Bill House

                           
Erskine Thompson

                           
This Diary Belongs to Miss C. Watson

                           
Erskine Thompson

                           
Bill House

                           
Sheriff Frank B. Tippins

                           
Richard Harden

                           
Owen Harden

                           
Diary of Miss C. Watson

                           
Erskine Thompson

                           
Carrie

                           
Bill House

                           
Owen Harden

                           
Erskine Thompson

                           
Frank B. Tippins

                           
Sarah Harden

                           
Bill House

                           
Erskine Thompson

                           
Mamie Smallwood

                           
Carrie Langford's Diary

                           
Bill House

                           
Mamie Smallwood

                           
Owen Harden

                           
Tant Jenkins

                           
Bill House

                           
Owen Harden

                           
Hoad Storter

                           
Henry Short

                           
Hoad Storter

                           
Sarah Harden

                           
Mamie Smallwood

                           
Hoad Storter

                           
Mamie Smallwood

                           
Owen Harden

                           
Erskine Thompson

                           
Frank B. Tippins

                           
Mamie Smallwood

                           
Henry Short

                           
Bill House

                           
Hoad Storter

                           
Bill House

                           
Hoad Storter

                           
Bill House

                           
Mamie Smallwood

                           
Frank B. Tippins

                           
Carrie Watson

                           
Nell Dyer

                           
Carrie Langford

                           
Hoad Storter

Book Two

                           
Winter

                           
The Undiscovered Country

                           
Nell Dyer

                           
In No Man's Land

                           
To Lost Man's River

                           
Nigger Short

                           
The List

                           
Owen And Sarah

                           
Caxambas

                           
The Indian

                           
In the Backcountry

                           
Watt Dyer

                           
Affidavit of Bill W. House

                           
Sarah Harden

                           
Arbie Collins

                           
Murder in the Indian Country

                           
Black Moon Mirrors

                           
In Columbia County

                           
Watson Dyer

                           
Ann Mary Collins Watson

                           
The Deacon

                           
The Empty Manor

                           
The Fastest Fastball in the U.S.A.

                           
The Banks Family

                           
Fort White

                           
Crazy Watson Eyes

                           
Raking Leaves by Moonlight

                           
Shining on Unseen Beneath the Pines

                           
Witched Apples

                           
A Failure of the Spirit

                           
Two Green One-Cent Stamps

                           
The Clarity of Churchyards

                           
Alachua Prairie

                           
In the Fall

                           
A Memory of Shadows

                           
South

                           
The Domesday Book

                           
Crockett Daniels

                           
Bullet Necklace

                           
Tant and Pearl

                           
Eddie

                           
Insulted Peas

                           
Carrie Langford

                           
Rob's Visit

                           
Nell Summerlin

                           
Desecration

                           
The Carver

                           
Power of Attorney

                           
Gunslinger Style

                           
Panther Acres

                           
Watson Dying

                           
Lonelihood

                           
North

                           
The Burned Man

                           
A Human Man

                           
Heenious Murder

                           
Night Rivers

                           
The One Surviving Witness

                           
Bloody Watson

                           
Attorney Watson Watson

                           
Belt Buckles and Buttons

                           
Gator Hook

                           
The Terrible Knowing and not Knowing

                           
Wild Hog Jambaree

                           
Everglade

                           
Gone and Lost Forever

                           
Homegoing

                           
Dead Reckoning

Book Three

                           
Chapter 1

                           
Chapter 2

                           
Chapter 3

                           
Chapter 4

                           
Chapter 5

                           
Chapter 6

                           
Chapter 7

                           
Chapter 8

                           
Chapter 9

                           
Chapter 10

About the Author

Also by Peter Matthiessen

Copyright

With love to my brother Carey
and
my ever dear Maria

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Over its long history, in its various manifestations, this book has been much benefited by a number of helpful readers, beginning as ever with my kindly, keen-eyed, and mercifully candid wife, Maria, and by Neil Olson, an ever patient, thoughtful reader who is also my longtime agent. As a neighbor in the book's cretaceous days when the whole was still inchoate, crude, and formless, John Irving was uncommonly generous with his time and strong clear comment. Jason Epstein, its first editor at Random House, was a strong advocate of the first of what became the so-called trilogy and so was his assistant Becky Saletan—already a fine editor when she took over the project but eventually snatched away by another publisher. Several others would preside who would also vanish elsewhere, perhaps in dismay over Watson's length; one of these was Scott Moyers, the excellent young editor at Random House instrumental in placing the present volume with the Modern Library. Subsequently, I am pleased to say, the book found its way into the sure hands of the exceptionally intelligent and insightful Judy Sternlight, its present and (I trust) ultimate editor; in recent years, it has also been blessed by the discerning eye of my gifted assistant, Laurel Berger.

For the encouragement of all of these friends in the long throes of what can only be called a thirty-year obsession I am very grateful.

—Peter Matthiessen