Shadow Country (31 page)

NELL DYER

A few days after we heard the awful news, I was picking up Mother's medicine at Doc Winkler's drugstore when Carrie Langford came in with her little daughters. Doc Winkler was the only doctor in Lee County and what is more, his shop sold ice cream sodas. Poor Miss Carrie had gone all dark around those big dark eyes, and her glorious thick hair, pinned up too tight in mourning, had lost its shine. Her little Faith came over to me and whispered, kind of scared, “Our Mama's been just crying and crying and we don't know why.”

Darn it all if I don't bust out with: “She's crying cause some bad men shot your grandpa!” Those terrible words flew out like bats the moment I opened my mouth. Her grandpa had been real good to me at Chatham, so naturally I was upset, too, but at my age of almost twelve, I should have known better!

Hearing those words, Faith became hysterical,
Grandpa, Grandpa!
She would not stop wailing. Then Betsy started,
Grandpa, Grandpa!
because five-year-olds need attention even worse. They would not stop until their mother warned them to get their grief under control if they still wanted ice cream sodas. And just that moment—would you believe it?—the doorbell tinkled and in walked the first real live Indian we ever saw. Came right through the door in a high silk hat with an egret plume and a Seminole men's frock with red, gold, and black stripes. This Indian walked straight out of the Glades into Doc Winkler's Drug and Soda!

Betsy switched from
Grandpa! Grandpa!
to
Mama! Mama!,
never missed a breath, and Faith cried, “Mama? Is he going to scalp us?” Because back in those days, folks still talked about the Seminole Wars and the last redskins lurking in the Cypress and Shark River. Later I learned that Old Ice Cream Eater at Doc Winkler's had been threatened with death by his own tribe for hanging around palefaces and gobbling paleface ice cream, too, for all I know.

Miss Carrie said, “No, child, that is Mr. Billie, he's not here to kill little girls but only to enjoy a bowl of ice cream.” And we watched Mr. Billie hike that skirt way up to seat himself more comfortably upon his stool, and lo and behold, he didn't have a stitch on underneath! Plopped his bare old brown behind right down and dropped that skirt over the stool and borrowed a toothpick off the counter to dig into his ear while he was waiting!

My mother made clothes for Mrs. Langford and her friends and was deathly afraid of losing her modest livelihood. When she found out what I'd said to those Langford girls, she burst into tears. Only a month before she'd had to send me over to apologize to Miss Carrie for having picked a beautiful big yellow rose that escaped out through her pickets and bloomed over the sidewalk. I picked that rose for my dear mother's birthday present because she was sick and I didn't have a penny, but not knowing that, my poor ma wept, saying,
This child will be the death of me.
I remembered those words on the day she died only a few years later.

When I went over to apologize, Miss Carrie invited me in for milk and pie. Neither she nor her brother Mr. Eddie visited Chatham while my family lived there so all I really knew about her was that Lucius Watson adored her instead of me.

Well, no wonder! Miss Carrie was beautiful, with a bountiful bosom and long soft brown hair and a complexion clear as a cowry shell and a faint scent of wildflowers—just an amazing person altogether and a good, good woman. And here was poor Nell with her home haircut close-cropped high above the ears so my ma could wash my neck. On top it shot up crazily like a hair fountain and fell down any old way over my spotty face. As Lucius teased in later years, I looked kind of odd and spiky—“like a wind-borne seed hunting some place to attach,” those were his words—but in my ma's mirror I looked like some insane girl poking her head out of a bush.

Maybe because I was so uncouth, Miss Carrie insisted that I join her and her girls in their weekly tutoring in the ladylike speech and genteel deportment expected of a bank president's family. Because I remembered her daddy very kindly and we both loved Lucius, we were soon fast friends.

•                           •                           •

I first met Mr. Lucius Hampton Watson around 1903 or 1904 at Chatham Bend, where my father Fred Dyer had been hired as the foreman and my mother was the seamstress and my older brother Watt showed up on school vacations to pester and bully his little sister. What I loved about Lucius was the way he protected me from Wattie and also his gentle way with all young animals, including a certain bucktoothed little fool who imagined him to be some sort of knight.

Lucius paid me no more mind than my ma's knee patch on his britches but he only spoke sharply to me once, to shoo me out from underfoot. The addled child had strayed too close to the cane syrup boiler and the fire he was tending. Too young to understand that he was more frightened than furious, I ran off weeping. From that day on, utterly crushed, I gave him a little room, but my dirt-streaked face was poking around corners everywhere he went. All I could think about was this lean graceful boy—he was sixteen that year—whom I loved with all my heart.

In the late summer of 1905, my father packed his family onto the mail boat in a great hurry while his boss was absent in Key West. Wattie was glad to go back to Fort Myers but I was inconsolable, and fondly hoped that our sudden departure upset Lucius, too. Though I imagined I must be the cause, I realize now that his concern was for my parents, whose contracts read that if they quit their jobs before the harvest, they would forfeit every cent of that year's pay. Having no idea why my father was so frightened, Lucius was urging him to reconsider. I urged, too, in my shrill silly way—not that I cared a hoot about their pay. Staying close where he couldn't miss me, I wailed over the tragedy of our parting but could not get his attention; he was too busy scribbling a note to be given to his sister Carrie, recommending Mrs. Sybil Dyer as a seamstress. Thanks to this kind act, my mother would become established as a dressmaker to Fort Myers ladies, not only Miss Carrie and her friends but the Summerlins and Hendrys and in the winter season Mrs. Edison, upon whose bust she would make finery to be sent north in the summer to New Jersey.

I never saw my hero again until the day of Mr. Watson's burial five years later. My mother wanted to attend but my father forbade it. I disobeyed him because I knew how awful it all was for the Watson children, not only the horror of their father's death but as Mama said—she was grieving wildly, too, which was why my father got so angry—the dreadful scandal in our small provincial town.

On that cold sad November day, hoping to glimpse Lucius, I went to the cemetery by myself, looking as respectable as I knew how by hiding my horrible Sunday dress under my green sweater. Lucius spotted me and raised his hand, though not quite sure he recognized me. Once the grave was filled, however, he drifted away from the departing mourners and came toward me. He looked exhausted. “Nell?” When his pale face broke in a warm smile, I lost my head and ran and jumped and threw my arms around his neck, crying, “I'm so sorry, I'm so sorry!” He had to detach me like a big green tick and set me down. While the mourners paused to wonder who that rude child might be, he answered gently. “I know you are, Nell, I know that. Thank you.” Courteous as ever, he asked after my family while making me feel he was glad to see an old friend from Chatham days even if that friend was only twelve.

CARRIE LANGFORD

N
OVEMBER 3, 1910

A norther blew on the day we buried Papa, and a cold hard winter light glanced off the river. The mourners gathered under the great banyan tree inside the gate. The Langfords turned up not to mourn but to be mannerly, that is, not so much courteous as proper: they wished to appear steadfast, correct, and faintly disapproving.

The old cemetery had sunk under hard brush and thorn since Mama's burial ten years before, but Lucius had worked like a madman for days to clear off enough ground for Papa to be laid in there beside her (Walter had paid darkies to do this hot, mean job but Lucius was so desperate to do something that he sent them away). It's comforting to think that Papa—though “somewhat the worse for wear,” as he might say—is reunited with dear Mama. When I whispered this to Eddie, he retorted too loudly, “Nonsense, Sister! How can they be united? Our father is in Hell!”

The gravediggers stepped back, doffing their hats. Perhaps the two who went to the Islands with Lucius and Frank Tippins had passed the word, for these men knew all about the frightful corpse inside that casket. I'm not being oversensitive. They
knew
something!

The sheriff ordered them to finish quickly, his voice rough and loud: he seems to dislike nigras. Looking severe in his black suit, he stood guard over Papa's casket as if to defend him from a vengeful Lord. It was kind of Frank to come, and goodness knows, our dreary little party needed all the support that it could get. When I thanked him, he exclaimed, “Mr. Watson had my respect, Miss Carrie, ma'am, no matter what!” He was very embarrassed, as if he'd said something crude and tactless rather than kind; his mustache, overlong and droopy, gives him a hangdog air. I wonder if he still imagines that he loves me.

After Papa's trial in north Florida, Walter and Eddie hinted that he would not have been acquitted without political connections. A month later, a drifter at the jail had been condemned to hang for slaying some local lout in self-defense, and Walter remarked that if the defendant had had local friends or influence, he would surely have gone free: for the crime of being a stranger, he would hang. I asked Frank Tippins if this was just. The sheriff said, “He was found guilty by a jury of his peers and condemned to death. That may not be just but it sure is justice. Justice under the law.”

At Papa's burial I whispered, “Was justice done here, too?” Knowing what I referred to, Frank said, “No, ma'am! No due process! This was murder!” He had spoken loudly; turning red, he stood gulping like a turkey. Then he whispered, “This was murder, Miss Carrie. But some would say that this was justice, too.”

Four of Papa's friends came from the Islands. Stiff and shy, they stood apart in threadbare Sunday suits and white shirts without collars buttoned up tight. Lucius introduced them to Eddie and me: Captain Bembery Storter and his son Hoad, Mr. Gene Roberts from Flamingo, Mr. Willie Brown. The men paid their respects and offered a few words of formal regret. Where, I wondered, was Postmaster Smallwood? Or Erskine Thompson or Tant Jenkins, who had known us since childhood?

When Lucius moved away, the Island men, very uncomfortable and nervous, urged us to prevail on our younger brother not to return to Chokoloskee Bay asking hard questions; for Ed Watson's son, it would simply be too dangerous. s
“He won't listen,” Eddie grumped and moved away.

A little woman stood with Lucius, very bright dark eyes and long black hair—cheaply dressed but pretty, I suppose, in a common way. She had a girl with her, a ten-year-old or thereabouts, eyes hollowed out by weeping, rather plain. When the child caught me staring, she smiled a small shy smile, then dropped her eyes.

Lucius had embraced these females a bit freely, so it seemed to me. When I asked him who they were, he said, “Tant's sister from Caxambas and her daughter Pearl.”

“The one who kept house for Papa? Lost her baby in the hurricane?” Lucius nodded. “Is that the one that he called Netta?” He shook his head. “Aunt Netta's half sister.” I kept after him, jealous because he knew an intimate side of Papa's life that I did not. I said meanly, “And did this female betray Mama with Papa, too, like your ‘aunt Netta'? Why is she sniffling so hard? She have a cold?” Lucius gazed at me, not sure how much I knew. “She loved him, I think.” His mild tone chastised me.

By now Sheriff Tippins had overheard us. Trying to smooth things after Lucius moved away, Frank Tippins said, “Lucius is taking this real hard, Miss Carrie. At Rabbit Key—” I cut him off, indicating that Caxambas delegation. “He's not the only one, it seems.”

Poor Frank was embarrassed. “Well no, ma'am. I mean—” “My father was no saint,” I murmured, to let him off the hook. “No, ma'am,” he said. “That pale child is my half sister, isn't she?” I said after a pause. “I reckon so, Miss Carrie.” I thanked him for his candor and he tipped his hat. “That the same old hat you bathed in?” I said, hating my own mood. He took it off and looked at it. “Yes, ma'am. Same old hat.” Like Lucius, he soon moved away and who could blame him?

Sun came, sun went. The clay earth of the grave was yellow-orange, dead, unwelcoming. Who could rest in peace in such poor soil? But I was glad of this cold norther because even in the wind, the odor of that box was shocking, truly. Driven back, the circle of Baptist faces looked stuffed tight, sipping their breaths, and women coughed, resorting to their hankies. I was grateful to those brave few who still pretended that they noticed nothing, but surely, they, too, were horrified by that frightful stench and the very thought of the putrefying corpse inside.

The only one who dragged out his big kerchief and held it to his nose, the only one who hawked and spat, was Mr. Cole, who drove up late in his new red Reo, scared he might miss some mean little moment he could chortle over later. Jim Cole hated Papa for not hiding his contempt: he had no business here among the mourners. Unable to hide my resentment, I turned away from him.

Knowing how shallow and vain I was, I prayed that all these Baptist folks considered such a ghastly stench some sort of satanic emanation, not the remains of Carrie Langford's parent, the source of her own flesh and blood. Oh, Lord, I thought, when my time comes, please hurry me into the ground before anyone can even imagine worms or the dank gray hair and spidery fingernails that are said to grow like fungus in the grave. Pray they remember that rose-scented young virgin, Carrie Watson.

My good Walter supposed that I was grieving and put his arm around my shoulders. Eddie stood off to one side, stiff as a wooden Indian, as if trying to remember how to breathe. Lucius, unable to stand still, had wandered away from our stricken party to rejoin Papa's woman and the frail half sister I had never set eyes upon before today, then crossed the cemetery to greet Sybil Dyer's adolescent daughter—all by herself at a burial, imagine!

In the first days of 1901, when Papa came north through Fort Myers, poor dying Mama guessed that he was on the run. Knowing this meeting would likely be their last, she asked him what might have become of that poor Rob. “What has become of him?” Papa said coldly. “If God knows, He has said nothing to me.” Relating this, Mama looked unhappy and bewildered, as if wondering if she'd known her husband after all.

In her last hours of consciousness, Mama lay with her hands flat on the coverlet, those fine hands with their long sensitive fingers that would have the same cool ivory hue in death as in her life. She was mustering up strength, I think, for composing a final message to her children.

Though the family had decided there would be no eulogy, I had copied that passage from Mama's scrawled ungainly note. I summoned up nerve and read it out aloud at Papa's graveside, in the hope that his true mourners might take comfort. Lucius wept silently, tears glistening. As for Eddie, I prayed that Mama's words would ease his anger and permit him grief, but how could her words affect a son who was striving to pretend his heart was absent, somewhere else entirely?

I suppose Eddie was lucky to be sure of how he felt. Here was the grieving daughter at the grave, still torn about her father's guilt or innocence and hopelessly confused about what her own feelings should be. What seems simplest is to go along with Eddie and Walter and never speak his name after today; I would tell my children not to mention Grandpa because it upset Mommie.

Lucius feels no such obligation. In a way I am touched by his loyalty to his father, but refusal to abide by our family decision is a lot easier for a young footloose brother who can always escape than for me and Eddie, both married with small children, who are stuck in Fort Myers probably for life and must suffer all the stares and whispers.

Mama and Papa lie just near the Langford plot, which shelters my own little John Roach Langford, 1906–1906, and Infant Langford, stillborn in 1907. Two little stones. Whichever family I am put in with at the end, I will be near them.

For Papa, Lucius had ordered a simple small white headstone with no epitaph, just the bare name and dates. At the sight of it, my tears came quietly, at last, at last.

EDGAR J. WATSON
NOVEMBER 11, 1855–OCTOBER 24, 1910

When my Faith asked in her sweet clear voice what the J. stood for, the mourners looked startled. Nobody knew. All these years he had been E. J. Watson; it took a child to ask about that
J
! Mama once told us that his given name was E.
A.
Watson: why he changed the
A
to
J
she did not know.

Papa's woman from Caxambas turned when she heard Faith's question. In a whiskey voice, more like a croak, she called out “Jack!” Lucius hurried her along, but she tottered sideways, seeking my eye, and called again: “E. Jack Watson!” Lucius would confirm that she had called him “Jack,” though why he could not say. “What does it matter?” Lucius said.

Leaving the cemetery, Walter's aunt Poke, the deaf one with all the rings, asked Walter loud enough for all to hear if Eddie Watson had considered using his middle name—
if he actually intends to remain here,
is what she meant. Calling himself “Elijah” might spare the poor boy (as she called him) future embarrassment.

I suppose we'd all thought about “Ed Watson Junior” but no one before Aunt Poke had said a word. And we all knew she was speaking for the Langfords. Eddie restrained himself from bursting out with anything unseemly in a cemetery but Lucius stopped and turned. “Are you afraid your family will be shamed if he doesn't change his name? Because our family will be shamed if he
does.
” And he gave that old lady a fierce look that challenged not only Aunt Poke but all the Langfords.

That ringed hand flew towards her throat but she made no sound. It was only afterwards, as we filed through the gate, that she whispered to Walter, “That boy has something of the father in him, don't you agree?”